Panic! in the Afterlife
by TimeLordOfPie
Summary: No ulterior motives. Just someone who wants to succeed in life, and help her family do the same. God help you if you get in the way. Warning: Language and some Mature references
1. Chapter 1

A small explosion woke me up, and frankly, I wasn't surprised. Loud laughter followed, as well as rapidly fired off taunts and responding threats. I rolled over, hoping to continue sleeping, only to have the blankets ripped off me.

"Ne, Asuka! Get up, you promised today we'd get dango!"

Did I? Why the hell did I do that?

"Come ooooon, it's my birthday…"

Oh. That's why. The wheedling tone got my ass in gear, grumbling while I rolled out of bed and hunted through my things for something decent to wear. The Orphanage we lived in didn't really have much in the way of clothing options. My companion was wearing dark blue shorts and a plain white shirt that wouldn't stay that way for long. He was jumping up and down in place, practically dancing with excitement. Not that I could blame him, we didn't get much in the way of food, never mind sweets. I had saved up the pitiful allowance I got for doing the dishes every night for a very long time in order to get this for him. I pulled out a rather beat up pair of dark blue pants and a similar white shirt before heading to the bathroom, slipping easily past my friend, who hadn't yet stopped talking.

His sunshine yellow hair flopped all over the place and I could still hear the sound of chaos outside our door from whatever mischief he'd caused already today. Uzumaki Naruto. Sometimes I woke up and _still_ couldn't believe I was friends with him. Not because he was the 'cool kid' or my 'long time crush' or anything teen novel-ish like that, we were five years old for fucks sakes, but because he wasn't real. Hold on, that's not a good way to phrase it. He's real all right, he just... _wasn't_ , before. The first time I lived. In that place he was a story, the first anime I ever saw actually. It ended and I would read the occasional fan fiction or watch an episode if it came on in the cafeteria at work. Then I died. It wasn't particularly a good way to go, but not a bad way either. Everyone in the building knew that at any time it could be a target, and we accepted it. But that doesn't mean that we actually believed that it could happen to us.

My first memories of this world, my new home, are muddled. I didn't know Japanese, or whatever passes for Japanese here, by that point. My vision was the shit kind that belongs to a newborn, so no surprise that my sight was limited to blurs and color. There was a distinctly feminine voice, dark eyes, dark hair, pale skin, a soft blue-ish blanket that was quickly replaced with something much rougher and more like burlap the closer we got to our destination, the sound of pen on paper, the rustle as it was tucked into the blanket, and the loud knocking that signaled my arrival at the orphanage. I was quiet for the journey my mother took to leave me there, still mostly in shock, mourning my co-workers and friends, and still trying to get a handle on the fact that I was _alive_ and seemingly starting over again.

Two months later I thought I was set for death again. There was a _burning_ deep in my infant body that didn't make sense. I thought I'd caught some strange illness and that I was going to die before I even got the opportunity to enjoy this second chance at life. The women that worked at the nursery didn't refute this one bit, worrying over me and generally not understanding what was wrong with a usually so silent child. It took several days for the pain to go away, and both the matrons and I breathed sighs of relief.

Three months after that came the _noise_. It wasn't actually 'noise' per say, but it was loud and suffocating, like the static that I felt in the air, and moving through me once that pain ended from my 'illness' before. I sat there in terror while we were moved somewhere dark and damp, only slightly more sheltered from the pure rage that flowed through the static and threatened to smother us. It didn't take much longer after that to figure out where I was, or what had happened. A small baby was brought to the orphanage shortly after we were settled back in, by men wearing familiar animal masks and carrying tantos on their backs. From there the shit that I'd been ignoring hit me like a steel anvil and I had to reevaluate my life goals. Becoming a programmer again was no longer an option. I'd been doubting it for a while already, mostly because of the distinct lack of complex technology. I mean sure, there was electricity and a television, as well as some kitchen appliances, but that's as far as it went, and the television was ancient. Now I had a new goal in mind, succeed. In my original lifetime it had been all about doing well for yourself, and this time it wasn't any different. I was going to become someone that twelve year old me could meet and be proud of, and I was going to do it while fucking with the bad guys as much as intelligently possible.

The mirror in front of me never showed the face I was expecting, and this time on Naruto's birthday was no different. I expected brown hair, but of a different shade and length. I expected light eyes and freckles accompanied with blockish features and a nervous smile. Now there was pale skin, delicate features, and eyes of a dark, indeterminate color. I turned my eyes away from it quickly, still slightly unnerved to have a child's face staring back at me. It had been a long time since I'd been a little girl, and this face was nothing like I'd had before. I went back to getting dressed, pulling on my clothes, brushing my teeth, and dragging a brush through my hair, chopped shorter by the matron just the day before. Now it barely reached my chin, and she'd done her experimental best at hacking bangs into existence, but I'd managed to convince her to stop when they were to my cheekbones. I could sweep them to the right and deftly ignore them.

Naruto was banging on the door by the time I was finished, already impatient,

"Come on, Asuka! If we don't hurry it will be busy and we'll have to stand in line _forever_!"

I rolled my eyes as I swung the door open, pushing past the hyper kid,

"I'm moving, I'm moving. What happened out in the hall?"

His right hand immediately went to scratching the back of his head nervously, a surefire sign of guilt.

"Ah, well, Masu-chan and Beni-chan found frogs in their beds this morning and weren't very happy about it."

I stopped shuffling through my things, raising an eyebrow at him,

"And I'm sure you don't know anything about it, huh?"

He shook his head rapidly, plastering on his best innocent look. It wasn't bad really, large blue eyes, chubby cheeks, if I hadn't known him I would have let him get away with murder if he used that look. So I rolled my eyes again, finally finding the coin purse I had been looking for. Naruto had found it for me for my birthday earlier in the year, a chubby little squirrel. It was cute as hell, but the mouth clasped shut and you basically had to feed it the money. Kind of odd, but I thought it was brilliant. He got it at the same stand that I'm assuming gama-chan, his own frog coin purse, came from.

The kid bounced practically the entire way to the stand, and to the park as well, two sticks of dango in each hand. He was chattering on about where he'd found the frogs, having given up on playing innocent, and I observed the people around us. Very few of them were actually glaring at him, most just ignored him, keeping well out of his way. The cruel stares were few in this part of town, but they still existed. This was the only park that we could come to in peace, and that was only because of it's proximity to the Uchiha Police Headquarters. The Uchiha didn't hate Naruto, which I didn't really understand, from their point of view. Most shinobi were under the impression that one of them had controlled the fox and set it upon the village, no fox attack, no animosity. But no one had put that together yet, or they just didn't care. Naruto was treated just like any other child and excessive cruelty towards him wasn't allowed when they were present. This probably didn't do anything good for their reputation so I tried to keep the confrontations to a minimum for their sake.

Looking at him you couldn't tell that he was under stress, mistreated, and mostly unloved. I liked to think that it was because I'd done a good job to be there for him right from the beginning of everything, but it was most likely due to his resilient nature. He'd never known life without me there by him. I was already five months old when he was brought in, plenty old enough to stick to him once he became aware and mobile. I was the one who helped him learn to speak, to walk, to read, and to write, though the latter two I'd had to learn for myself first from an outside source. No one was keen to share things with him, so I learned to be his fetcher. If he was hungry then I would be the one to ask for food. As far as anyone at the orphanage was aware, I was just another orphan, no one to deny food or education.

Having been a quiet and reflective person in both lifetimes I let him ramble on, inserting comments every now and then so the 'conversation' wouldn't die out. When it came time for lunch I bought us both something small from a nearby shop and we ate that too at the park. A few hours later I bought Naruto an ice cream cone and decided to call it quits. That was the night they kicked him out.

I didn't find out until lunch the next day. Sometimes Naruto just wanders off to try to play with other kids. I'm his friend, and he sticks to me like glue mostly, but sometimes he wants variety, to make new friends and add to our little family. It doesn't work, but it doesn't stop him from trying. I didn't put it together that he was gone for good until I entered his room to wait for him there with my book. There was another kid in there. Small, brown hair, crying. New. I didn't need to ask, I could figure it out for myself. I turned around and left without a word to the kid, feeling slightly bad for not comforting him, but I had things to do. I went to my room, digging out the bag that had been passed down to me when one of the older kids had graduated from the Academy. It was meant to take supplies to and from school, but I hadn't started yet, wanting to be in the same year as Naruto.

I went through my things with an adult's eye, packing what I would need and putting back what would just be dead weight. I did the same with Naruto's things, quietly so that the crying child didn't really notice me, or perhaps he just didn't care. When I had found all that I needed I put the bag on my back and left, searching all of our usual haunts for the boy. I was mostly ignored and I didn't dare ask if anyone had seen him, I wasn't likely to get a polite response. Finally, I found him, moping on the swings at our park. I dropped my bag, sitting silently on the swing to his right, waiting for him to say something while I went over our options. I wasn't leaving him on his own, he was five years old, and while technically so was I at least I had the brain and memory of someone somewhere in their thirties. At this point Naruto knew the Hokage, the man visited him once a month at least, and only missed on his Birthday the day before because of some diplomatic thing that he'd explained weeks in advance. Technically he could go to the guy, but getting to him would be damn near impossible. The only reason cannon Naruto could just pop in was because he was a ninja and the civilian workers couldn't keep him out. While we were damn sneaky for children we hadn't yet been professionally trained. With no one to awaken our chakra we couldn't use it, even if I could feel it roiling around every-fucking-where, I just couldn't touch it. So, we could always progress like in canon. Teuchi, I think, was the one to tell the Hokage that Naruto was homeless. We already knew the ramen chef, being frequent customers at his stall. The only reason we hadn't gone for Naruto's birthday was because funds were scarce. I couldn't afford it today either and though Teuchi was known to let us run a tab I could hardly just demand free ramen. They guy had to offer. We also couldn't just pop by for a visit like we do occasionally, we'd already been a few days ago.

While I was analyzing what we were going to do with ourselves Naruto cracked. The story poured forth of the consequences of turning five years old. He was told that he was old enough to fend for himself rather than waste their resources. I wanted to punch someone, but that wouldn't do much good. So instead I stepped off the swing and picked up my backpack, rethinking the whole 'running away' thing.

"I could hide you in my room."

It as an honest offer he shook his head vehemently,

"I'm never going back there, ever."

Fair enough, really. I cast my mind about for what the hell we were going to do for food, shelter, funds, how we would end up in the academy-that would work. I checked the position of the sun compared to the Hokage Monument before grabbing Naruto's hand.

"Then we become ninjas, and we show them that they never deserved us anyway."

Seeing as Naruto is now old enough to register at the Academy he could fill out the paperwork to join the class, even if it is a bit past the enrollment date. He thought it a brilliant idea, and enthusiastically filled out his own forms beside me, excitement only dimming when he reached the address portion. Being a Chunin the guy at the desk noticed.

"We have the address for the orphanage on file, if you can't remember kid."

I snorted,

"Oishi-san kicked us out for turning five."

Naruto's genuine child reaction backed up my story, and the Chunin replaced his shock with a stoic expression.

"Ah. Just...leave that blank for now then. I'll...I'll be right back, I have some errands to run."

I had been a bit worried that he would let it slide because of any animosity felt towards Naruto, but he's a ninja living in a village filled with ninjas. If he didn't report it then it would eventually come out anyway, as well as the fact that he let it slide. We were almost able to fill the paperwork out completely by the time the Hokage himself arrived and pulled Naruto to the side. I had already been 'approved' as Naruto's friend, I'd latched onto him before I was old enough to deceive, as far as they were aware at least. But, none of that meant that I had the same relationship with the Hokage. My situation would most likely have been ignored, but I have the feeling Naruto demanded to bring me with him wherever he went.

We weren't allowed to live together, but Naruto was appeased when I was awarded an apartment in the same building, on the same floor. I was across the hall, two doors down. Normally orphans can be given apartments away from the orphanage if they attend the academy and prove that they're capable of surviving on their own, we just never got that far. The conditions placed on us for allowing us to attend, even though it was technically too late in the year, were that we would graduate with those our age, who would start the next year. I didn't bother to try to figure out the motive behind that one, I was just relieved that events seemed to be falling mostly where they should.

In the isolation of an apartment of my very own I finally felt safe writing in the notebook, the one that was wholly in a bastardized mix of French, English, and Sindarin, and that was labeled 'Gabrielle'. In it was all that was truly left of the person I used to be. All her quirks, her knowledge, even her languages. Anything interesting about her, her time period, and her world, were recorded. The knowledge that I shouldn't have was referenced to in a way that I hoped would keep it mostly safe. I wrote in several different colors, sure to make the writing itself neat, but done in spirals like the Gnomish language in Artemis Fowl. It looked like nonsense, childish art. I prayed that it would stay safe that way.

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


	2. Chapter 2

I had assumed that school would be easy for me, and I wasn't completely wrong. I knew math, I could figure out codes and cryptograms, after all, I _had_ been a programmer. I had common sense, and I had intelligence. But the language of this place was complicated, and my hands were tiny. At the end of the day I sat at my kitchen table, Naruto beside me, our homework splayed out in front of us. There were different alphabets, as well as other things that made my head hurt. But I had the physical brain of a child, which was still producing new brain cells at a rate that made learning slightly easier. Since Naruto knew no other way but to harness this he sometimes picked things up easier than I did. It was frustrating, and humbling at times, but I got everything eventually.

I was at the top of our class Academically, despite being the second youngest, with Naruto placing somewhere around the middle due to the teacher's assistant sabotaging his grades. Our Physical scores, those were a different thing entirely. We were being taught the Academy taijutsu, which was at the moment more practice, muscle memory, and participation points. We were much too young, small, and inexperienced to be thrown into matches against one another, well, except the clan kids. Naruto was at the very bottom of the class in that area, not through any fault of his own. His energy was endless, and he was always enthusiastic to learn this particular part of being a ninja, but during class he was given incorrect instruction or altogether ignored. After school we always stayed behind several hours so that I could reverse whatever damage had been done to his education that day and practice myself.

That was how we met Uchiha Sasuke. The both of us were running through kata, set moves strung together so that you could practice each move as it was meant to be used in an actual fight. He was doing one from three levels lower, I had set him on it to fix his stance in one part. I had assumed it was better but he had fallen back into a bad habit during class today, earning him a stern insult from one of the teachers. I noticed that he hadn't once complained that he was bored yet and made a mental note to treat him to Ramen later if he kept it up for at least another hour. My thoughts were interrupted by a child's voice cutting through the silence.

"You're doing it wrong."

My head snapped around to the sound, mind not wanting to accept who I saw staring at Naruto from just beside the fence. Naruto reacted as expected,

"Nu-uh!"

I rolled my eyes, noting that the position he had frozen in was indeed wrong. I dropped out of the form, slinking off to where we kept our bags, sitting down to watch it all unfold as I took a water break. It descended into an argument rather quickly, and I finally intervened.

"Cool it, Naruto."

The hand grasping the other kids shirt immediately slackened, and he took a step back, turning to look at me guiltily. I resisted an eyeroll, turning instead to the kid who could only be chibi Sasuke.

"If you're so knowledgeable on the Leaf Academy Taijutsu why don't you join us?"

He immediately turned at least seven shades of red. It was fascinating. He went from little snow white to boiled lobster in .02 seconds.

"Ah, well, I don't actually know the Taijutsu-"

Naruto cut in,

"Ha, then why were you correcting me then, huh?"

The kid shot back angrily,

"Because I know some taijutsu in general, and that stance frankly looks awful. It's just common sense."

Before it could descend into yet another argument I cut in, not one to miss an opportunity like this.

"Then why don't you join us?"

The blush was back with a vengeance.

"Ah, you see, I'm not actually in the Academy yet…"

Before Naruto could break out the childish mockery I shot him a look and turned back to Sasuke.

"Doesn't matter. If you know some taijutsu already then you must be a clan kid, right?"

At his nod I continued,

"Then you get training outside of the Academy anyway, it's good practice for all of us."

I could feel an oncoming wave of complaints and made a sign to Naruto that plainly said we would talk about this later. He descended into full on pout mode while Sasuke was left to think nervously.

"I'm not sure I should…"

I shrugged,

"You don't have to, obviously, I just thought it might be nice to make a new friend."

At that his expression changed, he took only a few more seconds to think after that.

"Sure, why not."

It was a long time before the fighting between the two of them became amiable banter. Several months in fact. We never did find out what Sasuke was doing hanging around the Academy, though I assumed it was what most pre-Academy kids did, spying on the students and fantasizing about when it would be them. It was a few weeks until the upper years would be taking the graduation test when Sasuke invited us over to his house. Naruto was ecstatic to go 'play at the Bastards place', but I wasn't so sure. As outsiders who knew how we'd be welcomed, nevermind a no-name orphan and the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. As the cherry on top this was also the clan heads kid, whose standards would no doubt not include us. Then there was the fact that they had, what, a little over a year to live? I'd spent many a sleepless night thinking over what to do about that and the blank pages to show for my effort hurt all the more once I got to know Sasuke. After a while I'd given up and instead started planning for damage control. Like hell was he going to become an 'Avenger'. Well, unless it was the kind that ran with Big Green, tin man, and capsicle.

We ended up visiting the compound. I forced Naruto to take a bath and wear decent clothes, though not formal or overly nice, we were going to be playing around after all. Sasuke met us at the gates, beaming widely. It didn't quite make up for the stern looks we got from the guards, but they were easily ignored. He grabbed us each by the hand, pointing out each person he knew and what each shop sold. Some of the people greeted us kindly, others indifferently, some sniffed at us. I was surprised to find it was around the same distribution of reactions as with the villagers out in the main part of Konoha. Perhaps it was only the upper class Uchiha who had sticks up their asses. Too bad those were the ones we would be dealing with as Sasuke's immediate family.

Another thing I hadn't been expecting were the _cats_. They were everywhere. Canon hadn't shown them running around for some reason, as far as I could recall, but they were definitely there. It made sense, almost every Uchiha ninja signed onto the cat contract, it would make sense that part of the deal be that they could have the run of the compound. Sasuke scooped up one that came near him, absently handing it off to Naruto when he wanted to use his hands again. That one quickly did a runner, apparently feeling the Kyuubi and not agreeing with contact to it. Naruto quickly hid behind me so I got the next armful of fluffball that Sasuke no longer felt like carrying. I felt cheated that the series hadn't included this. It humanized the Uchiha so much to see them sneaking little bits of food from their stalls to the cats, picking them up like children and cooing over them, the young Uchiha's being guarded by those with obvious intelligence in their eyes and a certain strength in their step. It made me wonder how 'Madara' ever succeeded. Not only were there Uchiha, there were the cats standing guard, most of them nin trained by the looks of it. I suppose I would have to wait and see. Or perhaps it was a divergence. It wouldn't be the first time Canon events hadn't agreed with things I saw for myself. Perhaps it just meant that this wasn't the story I had grown up with, not completely.

The one I ended up carrying I wasn't sure about. It could have been one of the trained ones that spoke and used chakra, but it just lounged on me, purring, so there was no proof. It was rather pretty actually, orange with tiger like stripes and striking green eyes. It was the eyes that made me think it was most likely one of the intelligent ones. I had mostly tuned out of what Sasuke was saying while examining the cat suspiciously and when I tuned back in it wasn't a surprise he was talking about his father. Why he was talking about him was though

"-wanted a dog, but father said no."

I deadpanned, shifting the cat a bit.

"Oh, I wonder why. For some reason I don't think that would go over very well."

I think the cat agreed with me. Naruto didn't seem to care either way, busy taking in all the sights. When we finally reached the house that belonged to Sasuke he turned to look at us in order to gauge our reactions, but started when he saw me.

"Asuka-chan, you could have put him down four blocks ago."

I shrugged as best I could around the cat,

"Why would I do that? He's all...floofy."

Sasuke rolled his eyes, pointing at the ground and putting on an attitude like he was disciplining a younger sibling.

"Let him free, Asuka-chan."

I faked a pout, loosening my arms so that the cat could jump out. It did no such thing. I bent down to put it on the ground but small claws sunk into my light grey shirt, anchoring him to me. I had a stare down with it,

"Come on, Sasuke-kun says you have to go now."

It just stared at me balefully. I stood back up, holding it again and looking triumphant.

"Oh, well, too bad, guess he isn't ready to leave yet."

Sasuke rolled his eyes, crossing his arms and looking like he was close to stomping his foot.

"He has to though, no cats are allowed in the house."

I raised an eyebrow at that,

"That seems rude to the cats, they can go everywhere else, why not in there?"

It seemed like it'd be a bit of a political disaster, the head of the Clan not allowing the summons in his own household. Then again, perhaps it would be seen as normal, if they were allowed everywhere else and there was only the one rule, still it seemed odd to me. Sasuke tilted his head, thinking about it.

"I suppose it is."

Naruto snorted,

"What do you mean 'rude', they're just cats."

I kicked him lightly in the shin, scowling,

"Don't be like that. And they aren't, not all of them anyway. Some of them seem more...well, just _more_ than the others, you know?"

Naruto rolled his eyes at me but Sasuke shook his head,

"No, teme, she's right. Some of them are nin-cats, how could you tell?"

I scratched at my cats chin, noting that it had stopped purring for a second when I had pointed out that some of them were different.

"Chakra. Some of them have normal amounts for cats, others almost seemed like people."

The boys were well used to me sensing chakra by now, having utilized the skill to get out of trouble when causing mischief and even going so far as to help me hone it. However, all of that practice didn't prepare me for the voice that spoke from the direction of the house.

"That's a very impressive skill, being able to tell the nin from the normal."

All three of us jumped, causing the cat in my hands to hiss and dig his claws into my arms in warning. Sasuke's mother was standing on the porch, arms crossed, leaning in the doorway with a small smile on her face. She had to have been a ninja, chunin at least. She turned to her son,

"Are these the friends you told me about?"

Obviously we were but it was just the thing to say to get him to blush furiously and start introducing us.

"This is Uzumaki Naruto and Asuka, guys, this is my mom."

I always thought it was sweet the way that both of them introduced me last on purpose, having shared the theory that perhaps people would assume that the surname belonged to the both of us, rather than automatically judging me for not having one at all. Of course that wouldn't work on this woman, having known Naruto's parents and knowing what he contained. I watched her expression carefully for judgement, only noticing I was squeezing the fluffball when he sunk his claws into me once again. I loosened my hold, relaxing simultaneously. There was nothing negative there. A bit of sadness and some regret, but no anger, disgust, or fear. Perhaps fan theory was right and she _had_ been Kushina's friend, trying to take him in and being stopped only because of clan politics. She shook off the memories pretty quickly, gesturing us inside.

"Well, why don't you come in then? I just finished making mochi."

Naruto cheered and ran forward with Sasuke while I once again tried to detach the cat. Mikoto smiled softly,

"Go on, neko-chan, find someone else to bug."

Surprisingly the cat let go, jumping free of my arms and sniffing, a deep voice following the yawn.

"Just as it was getting interesting, too."

I only barely managed to keep my mouth from hanging open as it glanced over at me,

"Take care of yourself, brat. And bring treats next time."

I turned back to the woman, my obvious confusion causing her to laugh slightly, covering her mouth politely.

"He seems like one of the grumpier ones. Think of it this way, he said 'next time', he approves of you visiting again."

My inner five year old, close to the surface even when I had physically been in my twenties, sent the thrill of accomplishment to my facial features causing her to laugh again.

"Come along, we'd better hurry or the boys will have eat all the sweets."

They hadn't, but they were extremely close to a fist fight over whether Sasuke's mother or Ichiraku Teuchi were the better cook.

~ **TimeLordOfPie**


	3. Chapter 3

We were held back a year in the Academy due to our age. I had known that this would happen because of the Hokage's initial request about graduating with our peers. We could hardly advance with the year above them and then join them for a repeat of the last year, that wouldn't make as much sense as redoing the first year with them and then moving forward, learning with them and getting to know them. Of course, Naruto was devastated about having to redo the year, my reassurances that the work would now be easy and familiar falling on deaf ears. It was Sasuke that brought him out of it, realizing that it meant we would be in the same year as him now. I tried to be happy for Sasuke about starting the Academy and sitting with him for moral support at the ceremony, but the fact that we had now entered into flashback episodes unnerved me. Things were moving forwards.

It had all seemed so slow when Naruto and I were younger. However, looking back it seemed like I blinked and it was all passed us. I had been mentally ancient compared to him, but there I was chewing on blocks and drooling on everything. Walking had been a relief, as well as talking, but nothing had compared to reading. I had never really stopped reading to get rid of the boredom. Once the initial difficulty in the Academy of learning the proper way to behave and act as a citizen of Konoha and how to completely read and write the language of this place it was cake. The history classes were interesting, as well as the theory on many aspects of being a ninja, but mostly we were focusing on basic education at the moment with our PE class being replaced with taijutsu practice. Therefore, it wasn't unusual for me to be seen reading some random book instead of paying attention. Of course doing it over again would only be twice as boring, but I had Sasuke to help this time around, whereas I had Naruto last time. It wouldn't be the same but at least I had a more time to beat the basics into Naruto's head.

All homework was done at my place. I made food, and helped when they needed it. Naruto's place was in no state for visitors, I never had been able to convince him to keep it clean, and Sasuke's place was out. One one hand, I didn't want to run into his father or his older brother. I didn't want their attention. Oh, we would hang out in the compound all the time playing with the cats and using their training grounds, but when I felt the approach of either his father's or brother's chakra Naruto and I excused ourselves politely and left. I was able to memorize their signatures when I identified them by sight when both were busy around the compound at separate times. From there it was easy to watch from them. It wasn't exactly polite to walk around your home compound with your chakra masked, to those who could still sense you, or saw you, it looked totes suspish, was not recommended. On the other hand, the compound was going to become a battleground one day after school and we didn't need to get in the habit of being there around the time when it would be happening. I had the brief thought that Itachi would change things then, but Madara wasn't to be swayed, and he was in charge, so that would only endanger us.

My second reason for avoiding Sasuke's house would forever stay hidden, but the first one was challenged pretty quickly. The day after Naruto and I had beat a hasty retreat Sasuke confronted us outside of the Academy before school, looking me in the eye and knowing that it was me who made the calls most of the time.

"Why do you keep running away from my brother?"

Oh, so he hadn't noticed the father bit yet. I shrugged sheepishly, averting my eyes and letting the natural flush that always happened when I felt any strong emotion overtake my face.

"You always go on about how awesome your brother is, and how much you wish he would teach you something-"

"Exactly, so why don't you want to meet him?!"

I shot him an exasperated look so he would let me speak.

"Because you hardly ever get to see him, duh. He's always busy, so if he's free then you deserve to finally have some time to spend with him without us in the way."

This was accepted easily enough, though he still insisted that one day we meet his 'awesome big brother'. I was wary of the guy for many reasons. One, who he'd grow up to be. Two, who he would be in some short months. Three, I knew how he was supposed to die, and it was up to me to save his life. Well, lengthen it a little bit. I was going to save him from the murder bit, but that sickness was beyond me, medicine had never been my forte. One semester in the pre-med program at college in a past life taught me _that_ swiftly enough. However, Tsunade, Sakura, and Shizune should be able to make some progress if it was eventually brought to their attention. That would be easy enough if Sasuke ever showed signs of illness, Naruto and I would drag him there before he could protest if he coughed up blood for any reason whatsoever.

Not all of Sasuke's family was avoided, in the end. We ran into several of his cousins when practicing taijutsu at their training grounds, and more often than not they were very willing to hand over a few tips or tricks to the clan heads son and his little friends. The twins Kado and Kazuo, the only twins in the clan as far as I knew, were regulars. They seemed more like Sasuke, fun loving, friendly, though a little bit holier-than-thou at times. They helped us with shuriken and kunai throwing, which neither Naruto or I had been good at our first time going through the first year of the Academy, and it was during one of these sessions that Itachi stopped by to see his brother. I tried to bow out but Kazuo (I think), the little twerp, grabbed me, with Kado taking Naruto. They presented us to Itachi like human sacrifices before a sun god, identical cheeky smiles making me want to punch 'em.

"These are the little friends we've been telling you all about!"

Sasuke was trying to keep from laughing at my utterly _done_ expression, whispering to me once I was released and had staggered away a few steps trying to keep my balance.

"See, if other family is here too then you aren't stealing time at all."

The kid was trying to make me feel better about it. Joy. I didn't want to disappoint so I plastered on a smile, it turning to a real one once I noticed how Naruto was all over Itachi with questions about the life of a ninja and 'cool jutsu'. I couldn't hold in an eyeroll.

"Naruto, you know we can't do jutsu yet."

He squawked, looking offended and whirling to look at me,

"What!? Why not?"

"Do you _ever_ pay attention in class? They don't awaken your chakra system until the second year, supposedly to give you more time for it to form and levels to build up. Mostly it's so that those can't make it to the second year can't fuck themselves over or the too eager can't get themselves killed."

My liberal use of foul language, learned when exploring Konoha and mostly accidentally eavesdropping on shinobi and various old men, didn't surprise any of those present. Well, I couldn't tell about Itachi really, but the others were used to it. No, Kado, Kazuo, and Sasuke were looking horrified for different reasons.

"They don't let you use _chakra_?"

It was Sasuke who asked, so it was to him I had to explain it to.

"Well, no. Clan kids get to because they have family who knows what's going on and can make sure that they don't hurt themselves or others. Orphans and Civilian children don't have that option, so they're forced to wait for it to come up in the Academy curriculum."

Sasuke looked dumbstruck.

"I thought you just didn't want to use jutsu, not that you _couldn't_."

I rolled my eyes, punching his shoulder lightly,

"Yo, it isn't some medical issue, we aren't completely incapable, we just have a time limit until we can."

At least I hope not. I had that 'static' in me that I was positive was chakra what with how I could feel the same thing from everyone else and animals, but there was always the possibility that I wouldn't be able to use it, like Lee. I pushed the fear aside, elbowing Naruto so he would remember his manners, he finally remembered that he hadn't introduced himself. He didn't get the hint, but Sasuke was already seizing the lull in conversation to do so.

"Aniki, this is Uzumaki Naruto and Asuka. Guys, this is my Aniki."

He looked so damn proud that I felt guilty for putting off meeting him. But the guilt mostly disappeared when the guy shifted and I felt his chakra brush against mine again. Da _yum_. It was slightly frightening, but Naruto dragged me along to visit the Hokage enough that it was easier dealing with large chakra signatures, but at this stage they had to be mostly at rest, which was useless really.

Itachi was a quiet guy. He didn't participate in the conversation much, mostly watching with a small smile on his face as we bumbled around. He did end up showing off a bit once Sasuke begged a few thousand times, though he didn't get around to teaching it. A bird circled overhead and he quickly said his goodbyes and begged off. The twins wandered away shortly afterwards and Sasuke was still pouting. I considered telling him that his brother really had been busy when Naruto jumped in.

"Is he afraid of birds or something?"

Sasuke gave him a withering look,

"Of course not, Aniki isn't afraid of anything!"

Naruto held his hands up in surrender,

"Just asking, he saw that bird and ran."

More observant than I had thought, a thrill of pride ran through me and I cut in.

"They're messenger hawks, they're used to summon ninja from across the Village, discreetly. You aren't supposed to recognise them, just read the message in the flight patterns and then get moving."

I was faced with two wide eyed kids,

"How'dya know that?!"

They looked indignant and I smirked,

"I actually pay attention in class. We actually haven't gone over that yet this year, though, so Sasuke had no way of knowing it anyway."

Naruto got the unspoken message that he should have been paying attention. He looked guilty for all of three seconds before starting up another competition involving shuriken in order to change the subject.

It was that night that we finally managed to get permission for Sasuke to have a sleep over at Naruto's. Apparently Itachi had given his approval of us as responsible enough. I wasn't entirely sure about their sanity, allowing three five year old's, well I was six, but still, alone to care for themselves? Then again, this was a _ninja_ village, and we usually were alone running around, this wouldn't be much different except there would be sleep at some point. Hopefully.

It ended up being at my apartment rather than Naruto's, since mine was cleaner and the kitchen was stocked, seeing as we always ate there. There was a television that had come with the place, broken and super poor quality, but the technology classes I'd taken in college weren't that far back in my memory. I was able to fix it one evening after I had gotten the apartment, so we were able to spend the night watching scary movies, building blanket forts, and throwing popcorn at one another. Of course the scary movies probably weren't a very good idea, what with the others being five years old, but they weren't that easily scared. When they _were_ scared I promptly brought that horrible pre-teen phase I had back to life, making snide, sarcastic, and inappropriate comments, flaming the films for all they were worth. Most of the time it worked and they were too busy laughing their asses off to feel afraid anymore, but other times I sent them to the kitchen to make popcorn or refill all the drinks. They took the escape gladly so long as I didn't recognise why I was doing so.

I knew that we were being watched. Naruto sometimes had an anbu guard, whether it was because they read the civilians moods and deemed if they were likely to snap and attack at certain times, they had intel that someone was going to move on him, or they were just checking in, I didn't know. But a certain anbu was with them tonight, and I _knew_ that he had requested it this time. Uchiha Itachi knew that his brother was going to be spending the night away from home for what was most likely the first time, and he was there to guard him. Sasuke was probably as much of a political target as Naruto, even before the massacre. Dormant Sharingan, kid of the clan head, mostly ignored because of his older brothers brilliance. People could be very tempted to turn him against his family, or even his village. People like Danzo.

I couldn't help but wonder what those anbu thought of us. I was surprised I could feel that they were there at all. I accidentally caught myself staring out the window in approximately the direction of one of them and they dampened it down drastically. Not invisible to me yet, but more on the edge of my mind rather than ' _bam_ ninja outside mah window'. I shook it off after that, only occasionally glancing at them. I couldn't resist sending a knowing look at the one that was Itachi, seeing only the slightest of movements of leaves as he twitched in what was probably shock. No doubt his mother had told him I was some form of sensor. Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to let him know I could pick him out of a lineup of hiding anbu. Actually, in hindsight, it sounded like an absolutely horrible idea, but it was too late now.

The boys changed the channel to some action movie that Naruto and I had actually seen before. Naruto seemed just as enthralled as last time so I pulled out one of my books, absently taking notes, glancing up now and then if one of them made a sudden movement or strange sound. It was so much like babysitting back when I was a teenager that the nostalgia hit me like a physical wave and I had to get up and move. As a result we had entirely to much mochi for three children. I distributed a still slightly more than healthy amount between the three of us and then stared at the gigantic bowl that was left. I eventually shrugged, opening the window and setting the bowl out on the window box, on top of the small layer of grass.

"I guess it's for the animals then."

I closed the window with a snap, ignoring the horrified looks the boys gave me before they accepted it as one of those weird things that I apparently do. When I went to get the bowl later to wash up it I felt a thrill of victory to find that it was empty. I had worried that they wouldn't eat it. They should be comfortable with knowing that it wasn't poisoned, they had seen me make it and then eat it myself after all, but I had held out the thought that they might decided to persist in pretending they weren't there. The boys looked at it suspiciously and I shrugged,

"It's a ninja village kids. Either the passerby were hungry or our squirrels have gotten rather sneaky."

Not impossible that the squirrels would be sneaky, they'd have to outsmart the ninja if they ever wanted to make a living stealing from them. That thought was frightening so I let it be, going back to cleaning up and humming slightly under my breath while the boys yelled at the television.

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


	4. Chapter 4

**Omake**

 **It may have happened, it may not, you decide.**

Uchiha Itachi was one of many ANBU tasked with watching over the Kyuubi vessel on the night some intel came in from the streets about angry, drunken civilians making threats against the boy. It wouldn't be the first time this happened, and it wouldn't have been a first if they actually went through with it either. Sometimes the team often thought that they weren't needed though, because the small girl that the fox constantly trailed after. Oh, she let him do the talking in most situations, and she stood in the shadows, but anyone with half a brain could see she was in charge. If there was a hint of danger she grabbed him and they simply disappeared. The landlord knew which apartment was the Kyuubi brat's, and he gave that information out freely. The policy wasn't actually law, so nothing could be done about it. But the girls apartment was under the radar, as was the Uchiha compound. The amount of times ANBU trailed after the trio there in the past year was uncountable.

Uchiha Itachi only met them face to face recently, and if he hadn't seen the girl from a distance he wouldn't have known her to be the mastermind. Watching them all together like this, her gauging their behavior and treating them accordingly, never acknowledging their fear, it spoke of higher intelligence than she let on in public. Her comments to movies, some made no sense, obviously references to something he had never heard of, perhaps an inside joke with the other two, but mostly with a vocabulary that didn't belong to a six year old.

The Kyuubi boy also surprised him. The file had him at slightly below average intelligence, with a foul temperament, and overall horrible personality. Of course, he knew the last two to be false from his meeting with him in person, and now his own snide comments and counter-theories about whatever film also suggested that perhaps the teachers couldn't be trusted to make assessments about him.

And his brother. He hardly ever saw his brother so happy and alive. Lately he saw him miserable and disappointed as he disappeared off to another mission. But here among his friends he was lively, a bit of a smart aleck, but cheerful all the same. It was heart-wrenching for him to not be able to be that way at home because of his father.

After so long of watching them the girls quirks caught the collective attention of ANBU once again. Itachi had learned from his mother that the girl was a sensor, able to pick out nin-cats from the normal animals. When he had heard from her own mouth that this was even before her chakra system became active and reachable he deemed it necessary to submit it to the debriefing. Following a natural sensor was always tricky, but ANBU usually had no need to do so in the village. Anyone who had the ability was usually trained to such a position that they understood the code made up of lengths of chakra flashes unique to Konoha and jealously guarded, through that they could be put at ease and everyone go on their way. Either they had gotten lax in their in-village maneuvers or she was better than they had thought.

Crane was left in an unintentional staring match with her for upwards of 32 seconds until he finally gave in and admitted to being spotted, curling his chakra in on itself and hiding further in the leaves. The girl looked away, finally noticing that she had been staring, and not reacting more upon realizing that they were being watched. All present and aware of what was going on wondered about her sanity, allowing an unknown party to hang around outside her window while they were alone and vulnerable. That is, until she looked at Itachi. Oh, she knew it was him, and she knew _exactly_ where he was. He was unable to stop most of the motion, scowling under his mask and pulling his chakra in even further. Someone really needed to tag this girls file. If they already didn't have her tagged for that intelligence of hers anyway. She was a prodigy and she wasn't trying to hard hide it, though she wasn't exactly flaunting it like his family had forced him to do early in life. Her reading material alone vouched for that intelligence, advanced cryptography was soon finished and replaced with intermediate sealing theory, careless notes forming on a notepad on the couch beside her. It was the only couch cushion left in place, the others having been stolen by the boys when they began building their blanket fort. For no discernable reason the girl became restless, putting the book away and retreating to the kitchen, not noticing how the boys perked up when she retrieved a mixing bowl and she definitely didn't realize the way they did little victory dances when she brought out short-grain rice and a mortar.

There were several different colors and each color was dusted with a different thing, from coconut to katakuriko. The obscene amount of the sweet that she had made didn't seem to hit her until she noticed the amount of drool pooling below the boys feet. Her solution was to put it into one bowl and set it outside.

"I guess it's for the animals then."

There was a collective twitch, either they were being insulted or it was a reference to the animal masks. Itachi prefered to believe it a reference to the masks, after all, she was giving them sweets. In the shadow of the mask he allowed himself to stare at them mournfully. Tanuki was the first to give, risking the Captain's ire. He flashed forwards discreetly, grabbing a handful and retreating back to his former position, body language showing no remorse as he slipped them deftly under the mask and began munching. Itachi could see Hound-taichi from where he was sitting, as well as Neko, who was usually never far from his side. The irritation in Hound was almost palpable, but as was the resignation. After that most of the others surged forwards, a larger group than normal. Itachi joined the second wave, enjoying the mochi while it lasted. He would have to prod Sasuke into getting his little friend to bring the leftovers home occasionally.

Neko was in the last wave, holding out the longest by proximity to the source of the ire. It got stronger when he returned to his post with two handfuls of sweets, nervously holding a hand out flat with the mochi resting there. After a moment of irritated silence there was a swoosh of air and the mochi was gone, Hound's mask twitched and the others stifled their amusement before it could earn them hell in training later.

The satisfaction in the girl's face disappeared after her mention of squirrels, a slight, almost unconscious shiver following. Tanuki practically radiated curiosity, as well as Crow, tho there wasn't much either could do, the story would behind the reaction would likely never reach their ears.

After the boys finally went to sleep, passing out in front of the television, the girl covered them with blankets and curled up on the couch behind them, eventually nodding off in her tea. A pair of gloved hand caught it before it could hit the ground, a different set cradling the book, flipping through the pages and marveling at the content. The tea was gently placed on the end table, with the book laid open to the correct page beside her. Hound eyed Tanuki as he set down the tea, watching the slight movement of the mask as he reacted to what he saw. When their eyes met it took one hand signal and they cleared out, not leaving a trace.

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


	5. Chapter 5

Taijutsu practice was my favorite. It was something that I didn't have a leg up in. All Academics were dominated by me, but that was hardly fair given that my previous life gave me one hell of a head start. Weapons was also something that I didn't have the advantage in, and while it was interesting and entertaining it just wasn't the same. It felt empowering to command my body to do something strenuous and then for it to actually happen exactly as I envisioned. Before I hadn't exactly been obese, but I definitely wasn't 'healthy'. Even at six years old I was stronger than the twenty year old me, though that could be due to a body enhanced naturally through chakra and trained by master killers.

I couldn't get enough of it. Even when I was dripping sweat and close to collapse it amazed me because _I could go on._ Before a small flight of stairs had me wheezing and if there were anywhere upwards of three flights I would be near catatonic and aching. But now that I had physical fitness and something to do with it I was enthusiastic as hell. Oh, I would never be a taijutsu specialist, the strength wasn't there. Just hitting things real hard wasn't for me, but damned if I was fucking brilliant at it anyway, no matter my true specialty. Sasuke and Naruto didn't exactly share the same enthusiasm for it as I did, but they liked training and would usually indulge me when the mood struck to run for fucking miles.

I was tiny. I would always be tiny. One of the matrons at the orphanage had once told me, while being mothering and condescending all at the same time about my size, that the doctor they had look me over when I arrived said that my mother hadn't eaten nearly enough for me to be healthy. It was a miracle that I had lived at all, and that my chakra system formed appropriately, even if it was a bit later than usual. She had said that my mother was most likely too poor to feed herself properly, never mind a child, and that's why I was left there. Of course, food at the orphanage isn't exactly the peak of nourishing, especially when you're splitting it evenly with the kid they sometimes refuse to feed at all. Even now my funds went to helping feed Naruto, and both of our funds weren't exactly large. I was doomed to never be the strongest or the mightiest, right from when my mother skipped a few too many meals. But fuck if I didn't always outrun the rest of the class in laps. It usually pissed off the clan kids, but _they_ didn't spend many a night running to get rid of nightmares about a dystopian world at war that had eventually gotten them killed.

Sasuke came in just after me in the Academics, but blew me out of the water in Taijutsu, meaning he took the place at the top of the class. That kept his father happy enough, and with Itachi apparently starting to rebel a bit Sasuke was working on the fireball jutsu quicker than I had thought. Of course, Naruto and I were right there beside him, with Naruto yelling random encouragement and taunts and me analyzing and giving the best advice I could think of. Of course I filed away the hand signs and the how to for later, but I doubt I would use it without his permission. We memorized hand signs early on in the academy, it was one of those ninja basics that we learned to run through at light speed from day one. The practice of fumbling fingers had to be beat out of you pretty quickly in their opinion. I'd been a computer person, my mind knew how to move my fingers swiftly to hit keys that I wasn't even consciously aware of _why_ they needed to be hit yet. It wasn't difficult to train them with the handsigns the same way, even if it was a different body, the neurons controlling the muscles were the same, even if the muscles themselves were fresh.

While Sasuke fumbled about with his fire jutsu and Naruto yelled about how cool it was and tried to imitate harmlessly with his still inactive Kyuubi saturated system I curled up on the bank of the river surrounded by cats, covered by others, and reading a book. We were going to have to take the long way home again to avoid the Inuzuka compound. They always took undue interest when we returned from the Uchiha compound after interacting with too many of the resident felines. The cat from the very first visit was almost always among them, though he never spoke in front of the boys, and when he did speak it was to complain about the lack of treats. In my defense I tried to bring treats in, but my budget couldn't keep up with how often I visited the compound.

After about a week of this sitting around watching smoke the bigass fireball finally appeared. I was thrilled for Sasuke and told him so, but the dread of the upcoming massacre still followed me around. I was running out of time to learn from our Uchiha friends, to get to know Itachi, his mother, hell, the cats even. I was running out of time to spend with this completely carefree Sasuke. My friend wouldn't ever be the same afterwards, if he was even my friend anymore. I hoped to nip the 'avenger' nonsense in the bud and keep him from going completely broody, but from fanfiction it would seem mostly impossible. Then again, those authors didn't know the Sasuke I did who liked to try to sneak tomatos away while I was cooking, who hadn't noticed yet that I hated tomatoes with a passion and wasn't going to put them in the food anyway. I only bought the stupid things for him. If he was going to start hating everyone I might have to start eating them just to be reminded of him every now and then. Scratch that, those things are disgusting.

After Sasuke had mostly mastered the Fireball jutsu I got everyone into the habit of walking Sasuke home after we had finished what homework and training we were going to do that day. I wasn't sure if it would be safe for us to get that close to the compound should we interrupt the massacre, but I wanted the chance to convince Sasuke to get help instead of running in and getting caught by Itachi, who forces the whole hate thing on him. It was nearing the end of the first semester when I stopped dead just inside the compound, every muscle tensing and eyes narrowing dangerously. The boys stopped as well, eyeing me fearfully. I cast my eyes around the compound, examining the posture of the people loitering around. There was anger, mostly. Some felt fear, though those were the minority, and only civilians at that. Sasuke poked my shoulder lightly,

"What's wrong Asuka?"

I turned my searching eyes back to him grimly,

"Something isn't right. The cats."

"What about them?"

"They're gone. Every single one."

Sasuke's mother was waiting on him at the doorway, and she gave us a grateful look when she saw us. I gave her a nod and quick greeting before grabbing Naruto.

"It's time for us to leave."

"Wha-hey, we didn't even get to stay for cookie like usual!"

"We aren't welcome today."

On they way out Naruto picked up on the fury surging through the place, the looks we got. I didn't rush. I stopped at the stands we sometimes frequented, calmly bought dango for Naruto and I, and when I finally found a civilian that wasn't paralyzed with fear or rushing to get somewhere else I finally asked.

"Fukami-san, what happened to all the kitties?"

It wasn't one of the civilians I had in depth conversations with, but rather one of the older women who usually commented that I needed to eat more and gave Naruto and I directions to whatever restaurant had claimed her fancy recently.

Her face darkened, but she didn't shut me out.

"The Konoha council ruled against so many summons running free in the village, said it made people anxious. Bah! It's just another thing to tie us down, break our spirits. Ever since that day it's only gotten worse. What about you, child, were you frightened of the cats?"

I shook my head rapidly, Naruto as well.

"They were our friends! They weren't all nice, but they weren't dangerous if you weren't being rude or breaking the rules."

I'd seen a cat snag onto someone's boot for disturbing the peace, while the Uchiha patrolled the village, the cats patrolled the compound.

The lady nodded, grim satisfaction coating her face.

"See, a ridiculous notion, the cats causing anxiety."

She continued to mutter and we excused ourselves, heading home. I finally had an answer as to why the show had never shown the cats. They wouldn't have been in the frame if Sasuke was doing ninjutsu, or had been close to the head's house, which is where all the other things happened. After that, well, this had happened. It might just be the same story after all.

School was the same despite the strain between the Uchiha and the rest of the village. The only Uchiha in our year was Sasuke, and the others we didn't interact with enough to tell if they seemed to realize what their clan was up to. The teachers didn't let on either, so perhaps the political stress was contained so that only the council, the hokage, and the Uchiha were aware. I'm sure if the heads of the other clans were in on it completely then they would put it together once all of them were wiped out. And if Konoha could get rid of one unruly clan...it would cause mayhem and mutiny for even one of them to find out, or even suspect. So naturally, I was probably going to have to theorize afterwards within hearing range of at least one of them. All the clan heads of import had a kid in our year, even if they weren't in my class. They would know me from the rankings posted in the halls that declared me the highest in Academia and second only to Sasuke in taijutsu. It always made me angry to see Naruto near the bottom of the rankings when he deserved to be either right up there with us in taijutsu, or nearer the middle or top of the middle, in academics.

Naruto's situation would bother me more, and warrant some sort of drastic measures to earn a solution, if they actually mattered in the long run. True, they counted toward team placements, but this way it was predictable and headed towards canon Team 7. Sakura was dead middle with a higher academic score than most, Sasuke was at the top of everything basically, and Naruto was at the bottom overall. The exact formula for the team. So long as Naruto passed the exam at the end, which technically he wouldn't but whatever, then he would still become a ninja. He wouldn't need to score very high throughout his school years, so long as he passed. And the teachers wouldn't let him fail. They didn't want to keep him for more than one year. We were shuffled to the other guy that taught this level as it was. I still wasn't sure how Naruto managed to convince the guy to shuffle me with him, though I'm sure it involved amphibians and an excess of paint.

Naruto's pranks happened, just like in the show. I shouldn't have been surprised. Though he got attention from myself, Sasuke, our few friends in the Uchiha district, and Teuchi and his daughter, a majority of the population still despised him. He wanted total conversion. He wanted to be noticed. He _needed_ for the hatred to go away. I'm not exactly sure what happened but one day he marched up to Sasuke and I after he had disappeared to do some mischief of his and proclaimed that he would be the Hokage. I had wondered when that would appear. I simply shuffled my book a bit and nodded,

"Okie doke. Be sure to lower that tax on soda, it's killing our budget. You know what, just lower the tax of things coming in from the land of Iron, that's where all the good junk food is from."

I spoke about it like it was fact, because to me, it was. I'd seen him wearing the hat. This wasn't just a childish fantasy, it was the future. But of course, he had probably kind of expected to be laughed at, like with every other person he had told so far. His face was priceless especially when Sasuke lowered his own book, looking thoughtful,

"Oo, could you also lower the taxes on pocky? It's one of Itachi's favorites, I think he'd love you forever if you could make it more affordable."

I zoned out of Naruto's teary moment of feeling accepted, feeling a bit like I was intruding and at the same time wondering why the hell it would bother the heir to one of the largest, richest _founding_ clans of Konoha that pocky was about 2 yen more than other things. He could buy out the industry with his pocket money, if he saved right for a few months. Not to mention ANBU pay. Then again, with the whole 'heir to the clan' thing his father probably wouldn't like to hear about him being seen buying sweets. There was probably a lecture in there somewhere about 'weakness', or perhaps just 'tooth decay is unseemly for someone of your stature', yeah, that makes sense. When I zoned back in they were rolling on the ground trying to strangle each other, and I had no clue as to why. I sighed, going back to my book. Just your average Thursday I suppose.

When the end of the semester approached I started to relax a bit. I had always vouched for the fan theory that stated that the clan must have been massacred when Sasuke was around 8, even if the timeline and sequence of events made it seem like he was around 6, like now. Apparently his birthday was later in the same month as mine, so I was only barely older. I was starting to relax too much, thinking I had several years left with happy Sasuke, when we visited on a weekend to find that Shisui had committed suicide.

I was only able to stare at the grim looking Sasuke dumbly while Naruto stared at the ground in shock. I twitched, grimacing,

"The Shisui that was always grinning, throwing us around, shunshining places he shouldn't, and buying us dango?"

He nodded and I was only able to give a weak 'oh'. Needless to say we left quickly to let the clan grieve. Naruto was near silent for the rest of the day. I didn't have anything good to say to comfort him, so I cooked instead. When he finally spoke it was to ask questions, childs voice distraught.

"Why...why would someone do that? Just...end it all."

I held in a sigh, putting the lid back on the soup and going to sit at the table opposite him, crossing my legs in the chair.

"Sometimes...the world is cruel. And people who are so bright, and good like he was...it just... _gets_ to them. The dark that's everywhere get's inside and it taints. The taint...it drags them down until they're drowning and then when they feel like there's no escape, no way to be free again….they go search for that freedom the only way they can think of."

"...that's stupid. They shouldn't do that."

This time I really did sigh, rubbing the back of my neck with my hand before catching myself. Apparently Naruto's bad habits were contagious.

"Look, he said that Shisui was gone, and that there was a note. You know what the Sharingan does. It copies. Handwriting isn't a sacred thing when there's a bazillion of those guys running around. Shisui was one of the happiest people I've ever known, he had family, friends, hell, even a bingo book page. Perhaps one of his enemies got to him, maybe he really did just get in over his head. I don't know."

He finally looked up, pouting petulantly,

"But you always know, you know everything."

I snorted,

"Ha, not nearly."

"But you do! You're able to explain why birds chirp, why the sky's blue, the grass green, fire's hot, frogs are slimy, you fixed the TV, even when there were sparks and stuff, you always know the answers in class, you read those complicated books, you never miss a question, even when you weren't paying attention."

I was surprised that he had that many instances to name and resolved to take the time every now and then to look at one of his questions and go 'I don't know', just so that this notion would die out.

"Naruto, I'm your age. Well, slightly older. Barely. I don't know everything. I especially don't know what was going through Shisui's mind when he died, whether it was a reason for suicide, or 'oh shit, these guys are after me'. There are going to be times when I don't know why, how, or sometimes even _what_ is going on."

He shivered,

"I hope that doesn't happen too often."

I grinned,

"Same here. Now, I do believe that there's food to be had!"

Later that night Naruto went back to his apartment to go to bed and I stayed up most of the night staring out the window, trying to come to terms with the rapidly approaching deaths of most of the people I spoke to on a day to day basis.

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


	6. Chapter 6

We had an exam to end all exams because Naruto just _had_ to stir up trouble. Granted, it was amusing, but I didn't want to sit through a five hour Saturday exam because of it. The event didn't do anything to endear him to the other students, though Sasuke seemed glad of it.

"Things have been weird around the compound, it's a relief to have an excuse to get out."

Naruto looked appalled,

"Then why don't you just go to our apartments?"

Sasuke kicked some dirt sheepishly,

"Well, I wasn't invited, and my mom always said-"

Naruto stopped walking to step in front of his friend, grab his shoulders, and lightly shake him.

"Get this through your thick head, bastard, you're always welcome there, okay? Drop by, use the window for all we care. Stay the night, stay three, our home is yours too you know."

Mi casa es su casa. I'd taught him that. Friends were always welcome. I'd sort of raised him to have a very open door policy, and it was showing. Sasuke of course blushed fiery colors and launched into protesting that he wasn't a bastard. It was their usual trading of the names so I ignored it, walking along beside them and herding the storm cloud they soon became so that none of the civilians too slow to dodge got maimed.

Sasuke was allowed to spend that night with us, since there was no school the next morning. Like many of the other times he'd slept over there was no ANBU waiting outside the window, at first. Unlike the other times, ANBU arrived later on. This made me uneasy. I fidgeted, hoping to hell that the massacre hadn't happened. Indeed it had not. The next day when we escorted him home after lunch the place was filled with life, pissed off life, but life all the same. A bit of eavesdropping around town later that day while grocery shopping informed me that there had been an intruder at some point, caught by the patrols. So they were protecting Naruto that night, not Sasuke. I had been worried, Itachi hadn't been with them, so I had assumed the worst.

Our grades came in from the exams, with mine being the highest score. I'd missed a single question apparently, which honestly pissed me off. What sort of question aimed at _six year olds_ had I missed? None apparently. When they were going over the answers to it later the examiner noticed that it had been graded erroneously for everyone and gave the points back. Still, the incident made me realize something. I got snippy, over one fucking point. And it wasn't even an important one like the difference between failing and passing, or between an acceptable grade or a meh one. I was pissy about a score that wasn't perfect. I needed to be dragged down to Earth, and quickly. I was smart compared to six year olds, granted. I was not going to be hot shit whenever everyone else caught up on their education. I was going to be average, if slightly above due to experience and adult reasoning. So, in order to deflate my swelled head I found the perfect opponent. At lunch one evening Naruto was off causing mischief, Sasuke was hiding from girls, and I was reading under a tree like usual when I heard him.

"-such a drag, I mean why did she decide to have dinner over there _today_ , now I'll have to walk twice the distance after school. It's your move, Choji."

There was a shogi game happening over to my right. Perfect.

I got my ass handed to me, and walked away grinning. Oh, I put up more of a fight than he was expecting from a six year old, but strategy games had never been my forte. So I lost a game to a six year old and was able to go on with my life, head hopefully less swollen.

The next day at lunch a similar scene was upon us. It became a pattern. Why Naruto and Sasuke were off Shikamaru and Choji swanned into my area under the tree. I started carrying extra treats in my bento for them, which served as bonding time with Choji. After almost three weeks he invited me to his clan compound in the middle of a story about food.

"-you should come over sometime and try it, you know."

Shikamaru snorted,

"Hah, like she'd survive a trip to your compound. She skinnier than some of the homeless refugees we get wandering in, they'd feed her to death."

I tried to take offence to that, but couldn't quite manage it.

"I'd love to visit your compound Choji, but you see, I don't really go anywhere without those two."

'Those two' were at that moment having fistucuffs in the middle of the area, shouting obscenities for the world to hear. I winced,

"It should be a little while longer before I have them house trained."

Shikamaru lost it, and Choji looked like he was sizing up how much damage they could actually do.

That evening Naruto questioned me about the two of them, falling into step on my right while Sasuke was on my left.

"So why are you spending so much time with those losers, huh?"

I rolled my eyes,

"Come on Naruto, don't be that way. I'm just being friendly."

"But you have friends, us!"

I shot him an exasperated look,

"I didn't say I was replacing you, I said nothing near that. You know you two are my best friends, family even, so don't do that."

He was silent for a little while for some reason, Sasuke as well. I was starting to think I'd done something wrong when he got his hyper back, dragging Sasuke into it as well, bouncing the way to the training field we would use that day. Kado had started us on sparring, how to do so safely while we were still this small and inexperienced, and that's what we did for most of the day. When we had done different match ups until we had trouble standing we collapsed in a heap and went over what was said in class, mostly lapsing into a gossip fest.

Naruto and I dropped our school things off in our apartments, staying for longer in mine to have something to drink and a bite to eat. After a while though it really was dark and we had to escort Sasuke home. He was complaining once again on not needing it.

"I'm not a baby, and it's not as if anything's going to happen!"

I was debating whether or not to make an ominous comment when I heard it, or rather, didn't. We were right at the gates, but it was silent. Dread filled me and I dragged my feet forwards, finally stopping and throwing my arms out to stop the other two.

"One of you run to get help. Now."

Sasuke made to step forwards and I grabbed his shoulder, shaking my head.

"From outside the compound. I have a bad feeling about this."

He seemed to realize that there was trouble inside but I stopped him again, more forcefully,

"Sasuke, I need you to listen to me."

Naruto was looking behind us as if debating getting help like I asked. I shooed him on, hoping that someone would listen to him rather than ignore his cries because of the Kyuubi. I shook Sasuke slightly to get rid of that wide-eyed look and get him to focus.

"Sasuke! Does your clan ever have meetings, all in one place, away from the main compound?"

He nodded at first then did a sort of half shrug.

"I mean, kind of. The shinobi and the elders meet at the shrine to discuss clan business, but not _everyone_."

I scowled,

"There goes that then. Is there a festival elsewhere in town?"

He thought for a moment before shaking his head, panic starting to set in.

"What's going on, let me find them, I need to find my brother."

I clamped down muscles straining now,

"Listen to me. If something were wrong, what could we do? We'd be hurt. Right now, it seems like we're the only one's who knows what's going on. We're first year academy students. We'd get hurt, or caught up in the trouble, and then _no one_ could help, got it? Don't just rush in there without a plan. We need a plan."

He finally started actually listening to me, calming his breathing and closing his eyes to think,

"Better?"

He nodded absently,

"Better."

His eyes snapped open,

"What's wrong? Why are you acting this way?"

He wasn't panicked anymore, just searching for information, so hesitantly, I gave it to him.

"I feel four-two. I feel two people besides us. One...now there's just one. They're...I think they're coming this way, we have to leave!"

I was internally panicking and trying not to let it show. Itachi was headed our way and we needed to _vacate_. The odds of us getting away were getting slimmer the more Sasuke dug his heels in, determined to help his family. A dark figure appeared to our left, closer to me than to Sasuke. Dread ran down my spine, pooling in my stomach, I had to force my legs to stop shaking as I turned so I was standing in between the two brothers. The sound of approaching footsteps reached us and I didn't let the relief show, Naruto. He'd found someone willing to listen to him. I wanted to say something, to tell to stay away from Sasuke, but I couldn't find the words. Adult mind or not, I was scared of this teenager. I knew he was a good person, that he had good reasons for all that he did, that he was a victim of circumstance. But that wouldn't stop him from killing me for getting in his way. Finally, after a split second I found something to say,

"Sasuke, go see what's keeping Naruto."

He wasn't listening to me anymore, he was trying to get around me, towards his brother.

"Aniki, what's going on?"

He either didn't see the blood all over his brothers ANBU outfit, or he was ignoring it. I couldn't keep him behind me, he was taller than me, bigger than me, and determined to get closer to his brother. Itachi was talking to him, but the words were familiar. Hate, weakness, yada yada, I ignored it, trying to stay between the two. Then I made the mistake of looking at Itachi. There was something there in his expression that I couldn't quite gauge. But then his eyes spun red and I was falling. The last thing I heard was Sasuke yelling my name.

It's one thing to watch the murder of an entire clan, it's another to see it happen over and over and over and over. I don't know why Itachi would show me that. The murders beneath a red sky, behavior that didn't match with how shinobi should react to an attack, to the fact that there's no way all this fit into the time he would have had realistically-wait. Did he _want_ someone to notice? To put it together? Surely he would know that I would tell Sasuke, or _someone_ of importance. But he gave me the perfect excuse to be suspicious, so I would thank him, but there's bound to be some psychological trauma. The only way to get through endless hours of it was to pretend it was a B rated horror movie, usually I would make fun of the mechanics, but they seemed mostly genuine. Probably because most of them _were_ genuine, and as a lifelong Ninja he most likely knew how shit like this was supposed to down. In the end I had to detach. Pretend my friend the film student had sent it to me and I was supposed to critique it. This might work for someone who grew up with Hollywood, but anyone from Konoha couldn't dream of special effects like this.

I don't know how long it stretched in there. I know that there can be days squeezed into hours, theoretically. But it wasn't like I was counting. I didn't count the deaths. I didn't count the number of times I watched each one. I counted flaws. I reinforced what was flawed, and I moved on. So what if I woke up with tears in my eyes. I'm six years old, I can get away with that. When I opened my eyes it was light outside. It was daytime, then. I didn't know the time that passed in the real world. I couldn't really focus on that though. I was too confused with the color quality. The red was gone, the sky was so _blue_ , everything was so sharp now, rather than all fuzzy. Then my chakra sense came back to me. Then my hearing.

Sasuke was in the next room, and he wasn't happy. With a bit of effort I was able to get my legs over the side of the bed, taking note of the ANBU surrounding his room. The usual crowd that hung around when the three of us were together, protecting the other two. I ignored them, stumbling over to the door, thoroughly pissed with how my body didn't want to respond. All that fucking work, gone. We were going to be doing some major fucking running.

I had to hang onto the door frame for a little bit, breathing a bit hard, but finally I was able to push through, opening the door. I had to hold onto the wall, ignoring the people looking at me funny. Fuck them. I was a small child in a hospital gown, not a foreign sight in a fucking hospital. I pushed the door open without knocking, the abrupt motion of it causing Sasuke to freeze, his expression fading from fury to shock when he saw me. I gave a half wave sort of thing, my hand twitching and refusing to go through with the entire motion. It didn't matter anyway. I was tackled into a sobbing hug before I could try again. Well that answers one thing. Being alone did something to his initial reaction to the event. Not being alone, affected it in some way. His words were mostly unintelligible but I got the gist of it. He had thought I was dead, and the nurses had apparently done nothing to assuage this fear. I glared at the nurse that was present over Sasuke's shoulder, but her reaction to my presence said that perhaps they hadn't been sure about my recovery. Well then, I suppose they didn't have much experience with Tsukuyomi. So I returned the hug to the best of my ability, making rather obvious gestures behind his back until the nurse got the picture and left.

When Sasuke had finally recovered enough to speak we both sat on the bed that was in the room, with him helping me get up there seeing as my limbs still weren't cooperating. He was talking even before I had settled.

"Where have you been? They wouldn't tell me about you, or let me leave. It's been two weeks…"

Well then, that is indeed a fucking long time. I had almost been expecting the good month that Kakashi had been stuck in during the first series. He spoke again before I could find my voice.

"It was Itachi."

The hate there caused me to wince.

"He killed them. _All_ of them. I'm going to kill him, avenge all of them. He told me I didn't have enough hate-"

Before he could go into the entire spiel I found my voice, croaky and cringe worthy thing that it was at this point. Jeez I hadn't even found a glass of water there when I woke up.

"Impossible."

He stopped, giving me a funny look.

"What are you talking about?"

"He couldn't have. Did he show you the same illusions he showed me?"

He nodded, apparently picking up that _that_ is where I had been this entire time.

" _Please_ , several hundred Shinobi on their home turf, most of them older and more experienced than him? I know he was a genius or something, but even the best start to falter a bit at a hundred to one. Add civilians into that and you get a big pile of nope. There's no fucking way. We aren't getting the whole story."

Before he could interject I held a hand up.

"You and Naruto always want to know my opinion, it seems a bit counterproductive to not take it now that the stakes are a bit higher."

So he sat back on his pillows, willing to listen.

"What do you think is really going on then, you saw it, you know what happened."

I snorted, "Yes, there were also several days worth of illusions where _I_ was tortured and killed. It isn't all memory. _None_ of it has to be actually."

He winced eyes wide, and I realized something. His brother hadn't had the heart to torture him as well.

"Oh. Just me then. Okay, good to know. Anyway, certain reactions of both civilians and Shinobi made no sense. Fubiki-san begged for her life. I know for a fact that she'd be more likely to try and shank him with her knitting needles than to try and prolong her own life by demeaning herself."

He nodded reluctantly, giving me a point for that one. It said so much about this society that the two of us were able to speak about the deaths of those sort of close to us, having _seen_ it, as if it were the price of pocky.

"Some of them had no faces. The light of the moon surged to cover exactly _how_ they died. Do you know why he would do that?"

When he shook his head I rolled my eyes,

"He didn't kill them himself! He didn't know _how_ it happened, so he needed to cover his ass in case we checked. If he said person one was impaled and persons two, three, and four were turned into crispy critters but in reality they were all beheaded then the remains are evidence in and of themselves. He wasn't alone, that much is obvious just from the sheer numbers coupled with the size of the compound and the time restraint. It wasn't _all_ him. That, just that _one_ factor, invalidates all other theories. The why, being the most important. Why he did it no longer makes sense. The whole thing is a cluster fuck actually. But one thing I know for sure, the only thing Itachi has to do with all of this, is scapegoat."

Sasuke didn't look like he wanted to accept,

"But he _said_ -

"We are alive. The two of us. Out of all of those in the compound. With me, granted, makes no sense other than being your friend. But you, you're his little brother. You said he was having arguments with your parents, that he wasn't agreeing with sneaky little things the clan was up to. But you, you're still here. It wouldn't fit with his image as scapegoat if he just gave you a hug and said sorry before he fucked off. No, he needed to give you a bullshit reason for 'sparing' your life. Did he give you one for sparing mine?"

He shook his head.

"He actually told me that you were dead."

I raised an eyebrow at that, making a rather obvious and sarcastic event out of checking my own pulse at my wrist.

"No, no, I think I'm good."

I glanced towards the door, taking note of the chakra signatures around us. Just some rather flustered ANBU, also thinking through what I'd indirectly told them.

"Let's get out of here. I need a nap. In my own bed. And chocolate. A fuck ton of chocolate. And my book, yeah that's nice."

I slipped down from the bed, stretching my now compliant arms for a bit. Chakra, oh how I love thee. I went through the little closet, grabbing a pair of shorts and a black shirt with the Uchiha symbol on the back. I stepped into the bathroom, changing out of the hospital gown and leaving it on the sink. When I stepped out Sasuke looked exasperated.

"Well, come on, do you want to stay here?"

He shook his head vigorously so I closed my eyes focusing more on the chakra static around me.

"We've got a window coming up in a few seconds, unless one of the medics around here has hella chakra hiding abilities. That is, assuming all your little guards let us escape."

There was no answer, obviously, other than some of them trying to hide from me. I rolled my eyes, please. I'd been honing this since _birth_ , practically. That natural aptitude I have, most likely inherited from my mystery parents, coupled with my experience in a world without it made me one bitchen sensor.

"I'll take that as a 'go for it'. Awesome. Thanks guys, love you too."

I deadpanned it, shooting a thumbs up and the largest chakra signature before grabbing Sasuke's hand and opening the door. The signatures followed us discreetly, probably using genjutsu of some sort to remain invisible. It took forever to get to my apartment, and when we got there we found Naruto sitting at my kitchen table, just staring at the wooden surface dejectedly. When he saw us he lost his mind, crushing the both of us in a hug and sobbing his words out.

"I didn't know what happened, no one would tell me what was going on, everyone was saying that everybody in the compound was killed and and and, you guys and Kado and Kazuo, and Mikoto-san and Itachi-kun and-"

Sasuke's tensing cut him off pretty effectively so I sighed, struggling out of the group hug and going to make tea, my limbs weak and stomach feeling a bit funny. From the bandages on my arms and the slight sting that meant a needle used to be there, coupled with the pain in my throat even _before_ I tried to use it, I had been on some form of life support, feeding tube and all. They'd not known what was going on and pulled the plug on me, recently, too. They'd either given up on me and left me to die, or they'd known I was going to wake up soon. That last theory wasn't supported by the face that nurse had made at me, but maybe she was just surprised to see me moving around.

I pulled some left overs out of the fridge to heat up, noting grimly that I was skinnier, smaller than before. A hospital stay generally didn't do good things for ones weight. Sasuke did a pretty good job telling the story, his account as well as my theories, while I puttered about providing food like always. I sat down finally, feeling the strain I was putting on myself. The only thing keeping me moving was chakra and caffeine from the tea I was sipping. I kept out of the debate, right up until Naruto asked what we were going to do, and Sasuke started to get that broody look that belonged on a different version of him. I smacked the back of his head, not as strongly as I would like, but my strength was mostly going towards keeping me upright and breathing at the moment.

"Try again. We are six years old, there is one option. We are going to wait _patiently_. We are going to plan, train, and _discreetly_ investigate. But for now, we are going to go to sleep, because honestly I'm kind of surprised I'm still breathing at this point. Where did the nurses say you were going to stay?"

Sasuke shrugged, looking at the floor,

"The Hokage said the council ruled that none of the clans were allowed to take me in, politics he said. They ruled that I could take care of myself, live in my old house."

I snorted,

"That is a psychological breakdown in the making. We'll fix that bullshit in the morning, it's a fort kind of night."

They didn't need to be told twice. Naruto was the most enthusiastic of the two of course, Sasuke was quiet, broody, of course he would be. But he had smiled a few times already, and I could hear him bantering with his friend almost like before. He would recover. I think the shock of finding me alive after all did something to right a few things in him. I put my tea down, eyeing where I knew the ANBU to be, hiding in my kitchen for once, rather than outside like usual. This was one of the lower chakra levels, but that didn't make him any less dangerous. When I was sure the boys couldn't hear me over their own banter I looked right to where I was pretty sure his eyes were based on the size of the chakra and height of the average male in Konoha.

"You know, you guys could be helpful instead of playing strong silent type."

When I got no reaction I continued.

"We might get ourselves hurt bumbling around in this, you know."

Still nothing. I shrugged, sighing.

"Let it not be said that I didn't _try_ to get adults involved. Fine, be that way. But I really do think you should look into the _why_ a bit more. Just...accepting that one of your own cracked and killed everyone...doesn't fit. Then again, if someone had enough influence to make sure _that_ story was accepted...perhaps this goes further up the food chain than we'd like to think."

I caught a whiff of reaction from the guy, but not enough to tell what it was. I could only hope he wasn't angry with me for sticking my nose into things. Nothing for it. The boys were silent now, from their chakra I could tell that they had passed out. I put the dishes in the sink before stumbling into the living room catching myself onto the doorframe, rubbing at my neck where he'd liked to slit my throat every now and then. I caught myself, forcing my hand down as I proceeded to the little nest they'd left for me. It was probably unhealthy to go back to sleep so soon after a coma, but I couldn't help myself, descending into oblivion.

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


	7. Chapter 7

We eventually managed to get permission for Sasuke to take funds out of the clan vaults to use to live outside the compound on accounts of upkeep being too much for one small child. If he happened to pick the apartment directly beside mine and straight across from Naruto then what a coincidence. We still spent most of our time in the apartments in mine, seeing as I still was the one who cooked.

Our return to school was filled with well wishers latching on to Sasuke and Naruto leaping to his defense to beat the girls away so he could make his escape. At lunch that day Shikamaru hunted me down, Choji following close behind him. He flopped onto the grass beside me, not saying a thing for a little while. The air was filled with the crunching of chips until Shikamaru finally decided to talk.

"My dad said that you were there."

I nodded, not volunteering any information.

"But no one is asking about how _you_ are."

I shot him an exasperated look.

"I'm obviously fine, and Sasuke is the one who lost everything."

"Don't buy that. Well, that he lost everything yeah, but you're far from fine. For the first thing, you missed just as much school as he did, I heard you were in the hospital too. For another thing, if you keep rubbing your neck like that it's going to bleed."

I jerked my hand away, only just noticing what I had been doing. I shot Shikamaru a withering glare that he gracefully ignored. Stupid child geniuses.

"So I'm going to ask, since no one else will. How are you?"

I was going to fire of the general 'fine' and change the subject by challenging him to shogi, but the look in his eye stopped me. He is entirely too smart for a six year old. I wonder what the Nara put in their water. And where can I get some. I sighed, sitting back against the tree fully.

"I'm not okay. But I'll get better."

He continued to stare at me for a few seconds before finally accepting the answer, nodding.

"Good."

After a bit of silence there was a shuffling and Choji put his bag of snacks under my nose.

"Chip?"

I smiled at him, taking one gently.

"Thanks."

And that was the end of it. Ninja in training, but still children in the end. Class went on as usual, with Naruto and I helping Sasuke rush to catch up. Of course, Sakura and Ami had gotten cocky about their grades in my absence, so I quickly shot right back up to the top despite the gap, to their obvious displeasure. Kunoichi classes, the stupid as hell things, started the second semester, so I was behind in that as well. I knew the flowers and information from the year before, but that didn't mean that I didn't hate having to go. Oh, it was useful, and interesting even. But being surrounded by that many young girls dreaming about prince charming and _just not getting_ that they weren't signing up for a Hollywood love story, but a cheap horror novel. I almost always ended up stalking home in a pissy mood afterwards. It was after particularly rough classes that Sasuke and Naruto would gang up to spar with me. Oh, I couldn't win against the both of them, but the strength of my ire meant that I put up a good fight and everyone got a decent workout out of it.

It didn't take long for them to pick up on the fact that I spent half the time unintentionally rubbing at my throat. One day when I found a light green necklace on my kitchen table I assumed it was from them. A choker necklace, fitting precisely where I usually rubbed. I wore it from then on, and whenever I started to fall back into my bad habit I would fiddle with the necklace instead of accidentally hurting myself. It was a thoughtful gift and I was happy with it right up until Naruto asked where I'd gotten it, and Sasuke had looked interested in the answer. That meant several things. One, someone had been in my house. Two, they weren't trying to kill me or the thing would have poisoned me by now. Three, someone noticed something was wrong, and cared enough to procure the necklace and leave it anonymously. Most likely also taking measurements in my sleep or eyeballing it with hella skill if the fit was anything to go by.

After a bit of thought on the subject I kept wearing it. If it were going to kill me it would have done so by now. And there weren't any seals on it, I would have been able to feel the latent chakra. As it was the chakra of the one who'd given it to me was faint, barely there, mostly replaced by my own signature. I sat on the couch for about an hour holding the plain white box it had come in, trying to figure out where I knew the feeling of that particular static from. I gave up after a while, putting it back on the shelf and filling it once again with random things. I'd be on the lookout for it in the village.

The rest of our first year of the academy (official one, at least) was easy, just like we had assumed it would be. We kept up with our Taijutsu practice, as well as the weapons and hand signs. While Sasuke and Naruto were studying things like Math or theory that I either already knew or understood immediately I dabbled in various things. Of course I couldn't actually do anything with it yet, no active chakra system, but I could very well start theorizing so I had a laundry list of tests to run once chakra was at my disposal. My first stop was seals. One, it was like bullshit ninja magic. There were seals that worked as barriers, much like devil's traps in Supernatural. How sweet was that? Then there were time-space seals, like storage scrolls. Bigger on the inside. Time Lord tech, anyone? It was sweet and I wanted to dabble. But without chakra I was on hold. I read all I could get my hands on in the library and for a distraction from the latest trouble they'd gotten into the boys searched out and found books and scrolls from the Uchiha library. It would have been difficult for Sasuke to do, but he insisted that he'd rather me put them to use than for them to gather dust. So I had some high level shit that a small child really shouldn't be trusted with, but it was Sasuke's to give so no one could stop him, even if they knew about it. The only ones who knew were our occasional ANBU guards. One of them was replaced a bit after the Massacre, and I was willing to bet money is was Kakashi, being forced by the Hokage to retire from the shadow forces. I made a bit of a deal about it the first time they showed up with the replacement, giving him a hard stare through the window, sitting wedged on the seat with tea in hand. I was still small enough to fit there so I made the best out of it, reading in the fresh air. This time the book lay open in my lap while I stared at the new guy. Finally I closed the book without looking down, grateful that the boys had retreated to the kitchen for the moment, their shouting still at the edge of my hearing.

"House rules, you have your run of the leftovers in the fridge, but God help you if you don't leave your dishes in the sink."

With that I unfolded from my position, setting the book down on the table, shutting the window and sneaking up on the boys to find that they were trying to figure out how to fix lunch themselves. After that followed an impromptu lesson on how _not_ to burn rice. I was just grateful that they didn't seem to notice I always made extra that seemed to just disappear. It probably should unnerve me that I was feeding our ANBU stalkers but they were the good guys at the moment. None of them had seals under their tongues, so they were golden. As it was I knew the one that had stuck so close to 'probably Kakashi' was most likely Tenzo. I had to wonder when he would bail on us too. At the end of the day if there were a few extra dishes in the sink then I just did a mental victory dance and went on with it. It was probably hella against the rules for them to interact with me like this, even so indirectly, but I was grateful for it. It's not like they weren't actually human, as much as they weren't supposed to let on about it. They probably couldn't resist forming some sort of opinion about us, with as much time as they had to spend here. I think they sometimes dropped by to guard Naruto randomly, just to confuse anyone watching as to what the watch schedule actually was. Plot twist, wasn't one.

I usually waited for the boys to go to their respective apartments to sleep before getting out most of my real research. This was mostly because the ANBU guys would split and follow them rather than someone staying with me. I wasn't important enough to guard, just some orphan that had managed to befriend to the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and the last Uchiha. My work with seals was at a standstill mostly, because I needed chakra to activate them and turn them into actual seals. Of course I could work on my handwriting and theory until I got the rest of it. As it was, there was a rather interesting concept I wanted to test. The reason the particular symbols held power. What made that go 'boom', how did those put together mean a certain thing, what gave them importance over others? Belief. It basically said that if you could confuse yourself into thinking dark was light, then a 'light bomb' could instead produce shadow. It was a difficult technique and the bane of seal masters existences. If someone managed it then determining the purpose was near impossible. Doing it large scale was nearly impossible, though, so the Curse Marks definitely meant what they said. But I wasn't interested in confusing myself and others, putting the wrong character and accidentally getting the right result, which was what the phenomena focused on mainly. What I wanted was to turn my home languages into seals. Imagine, if I could use Sindarin, or Circular Galifreyan. I had so much more mastery in English and French than in this language, so many ideas that this language just didn't have the words and understanding for. Plus, it would make it mostly uncrackable. But doing it completely in another language wasn't what I was going to aim for, neat as it might seem. What I wanted was to augment seals with it. Most seals had the function part, and then random lines and such to detract from the business bit and help the chakra flow through the whole thing, like cursive for Japanese Calligraphy. It was like veins bringing blood to different parts of the body. The lines didn't mean anything but to the one who drew it, they didn't affect the seal if done differently, but if I hid a few foreign words in those twisting lines…

But that was all for later thought, because there wasn't much I could do with it now anyway. Of course I slapped down some ideas for seals using science from home, theory garnered from Doctor Who and Star Trek, as well as a little bit of Fullmetal Alchemist. Alchemy seemed remarkably similar to this sealing business. My ideas were coded and stored away, all under 'Gabrielle'. She was the one those ideas came from mostly. Even if technically she was me and I was her. I had to put away the delicate mind of someone raised in a middle-class family who never wanted for food and only experienced hardship of any kind in that last half-year of existence. Her reactions and opinions on this place wouldn't help anything. Her morals, they wouldn't get me far. My original goal, to be someone that my twelve year old self would be proud of, it wasn't impossible, but twenty something me would probably hate this version of me the moment I got that headband and started ending lives for money. So she needed to be compartmentalized, hopefully without locking away the higher level reasoning and advanced knowledge that was giving me such an advantage over everyone else.

I tended to fall asleep over my notes, waking up with ink on my face and my short choppy hair a complete mess. I showered, washing away the ink, and towel dried my hair, examining it critically in the mirror. It hadn't gotten much longer since the last time I'd chopped it a bit shorter. I caught myself avoiding my own eyes in the mirror again. I didn't like to look at them. Dark brown, maybe black. I wasn't sure, I hated them. A rather obvious deviation from what I had before. And this pale skin that refused to tan. Ridiculous. I gave up on my hair, leaving it to air dry while I got dressed. Dark shorts with pockets, a grey shirt (tight fitting, more like underarmor from my previous world, bought from a ninja outfitter), and the standard ninja sandals, black in my case. I pulled a beanie on, black like the shorts, glad that such things existed in this place. Sometimes it was to hide a bad hair day, others I was just too lazy and I felt like it complimented the mood nicely. The green necklace stood out against my duller colors, and I wondered about it before deciding that when I was an actual ninja it would probably blend into the green of the trees, while my other clothes went with the shades of the shadows. I wasn't exactly running late for school, but I wasn't going to make it on time either. Mostly because I refused to rush. Not like it was going to be something I didn't know. I had never been so flippant about being late or absent from school before, not in my previous life. But this time the consequences were negligible. I had no parents or guardian for them to complain too, and they generally didn't bother with me missing or being late since it's not like it affected my grade. I deemed it a good thing I was taking a slow day when I felt a familiar chakra signature while walking through the market district. I finally saw the face of the newbie ANBU tasked to watch my friends, a young girl, young enough that they was probably her first real ANBU assignment. Whoops, I'd probably thrown her off worse than the others then. She stiffened when I got close, not a visible reaction in a ninja unless you're looking for it like I was. She turned and we made eye contact, with me throwing her a cheeky wave and genuine smile before continuing on. She was definitely young, fresh faced and with bright green hair, light purple eyes as well. I will probably never get used to the strange colors available around here. I was constantly thankful I hadn't ended up with something like blue hair, or red eyes.

When I finally made it to school the teacher just shot me an exasperated look and continued on with his lecture. Really, a six year old wandering town, swanning into school and usurping authority, it wouldn't have flown back in my old world. But I should really stop comparing the two. Because here people became trained killers at six years old, some were on the battlefield by seven. Some died in confrontations at 12. The two places were different, and I had to either commit to this one, or hold onto my useless longing for the old one.

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


	8. Chapter 8

Most likely because I eagerly awaited it a certain day seemed to approach at the rate of a funeral march. When it finally arrived I wasn't the only one bouncing in excitement. Sasuke watched Naruto and I lose our minds over the event with amusement while we waited for our chakra systems to be activated. Naruto's was probably going to bowl me over with intensity the first time it went truly ninja-live. From the corner of my eye I could see Ino sticking a leaf to her hand and showing off to the civilian raised kids who had only just gained access to their chakra.

I was right about Naruto, falling out of my chair from the backlash. The ANBU guards were present for today, probably in case the activation of the system did something to the Fox's seal, and I couldn't help feeling a bit embarrassed at my reaction. Naruto, Sasuke and the Chunin instructor were the only ones who noticed, the latter giving me a funny look before reaching for me with a hand I could feel was lit with chakra. When it touched my own I had to fight not to pass out, instead keeping still until he moved on and slowly putting my head on my desk, closing my eyes and trying to comprehend all the new stimulus. If I thought my chakra sense was accurate before it was stupid now. I had to take a few breaths, waving Sasuke and Naruto off when they tried to swarm me, they figured out quickly enough what the problem was. I wasn't able to attempt the leaf exercise that day. I felt ill and overloaded each time I tried to reach for my chakra. At first I was pissed because I had waited so damn long for it, then I was afraid. What if this chakra sense turned into a disability? What if I couldn't use chakra because each time I tried I overloaded my own senses? Perhaps training in being a sensor so early had fucked me up. Most people wouldn't have had the sense of mind to train it like that, so they wouldn't have been able to mess themselves up. What if I'm broken?

Such thoughts flowed through my head for the next week. I received a lot of laughs and jeers for refusing to try the exercise, looking a bit green each time. But I ignored them, they were children after all. I had recently turned seven years old, and I wasn't bothered by the thoughtless words of my peers. However, I was worried about what our ANBU thought about us. They weren't there for me, but I fed them so I considered them a bit mine as well. They were watching Sasuke only on the night I finally got my chakra to move. The static feeling was what I would imagine waterbending with corn syrup would feel like. It didn't want to move, sluggish and sleeping still. But I emptied my white box that the necklace had come in and filled it with leaves, starting on this little exercise. Naruto and Sasuke came in and out during it, but wisely got what they wanted out of the fridge and left silently. It took weeks of near constant trying to get it to work. I figured out after awhile that my system was sluggish because it had never flowed any way other than what was natural for the human body. It didn't know what the hell I wanted and was slow in being turned from the natural order. But once I set the precedent of movement it got more and more pliable, finally moving just as I directed. With more practice I was able to move only exactly as much as I needed to exactly where I needed it. Perks of feeling my chakra in ways most people can't.

Of course my sudden mastery of it after such a long period of struggle pissed Naruto off to no end. He just had so much chakra. Control was nearly impossible for him at this point. So one evening when he was struggling to attach a leaf to his head I handed him a thick novel and told him to stick it to his hand. He managed, after quite a while and some struggle. I had him work on that until it was easy, then worked his way down so that the objects got smaller. His grade in regards to control sucked, obviously, but he was making obvious visible improvement with the size of of the objects and how long he could get them to stick. When he finally managed to get a leaf to stick I had all three of us stick leaves to everywhere we could hold them, and then spar. We got a lap for each leaf we dropped, though we all ended up running the same number of laps that Naruto ended up earning. I wanted so badly to start attempting tree walking, but I hadn't 'seen' it before, and it wasn't the easiest of things to just 'come up with'. So I was forced to watch more carefully and attempt to catch a ninja in the act. It took a surprisingly long time. I finally had to stalk a genin team looking for training tips all the while. I dragged Sasuke along with me, Naruto being caught up in painting something that he shouldn't somewhere that it didn't belong. The ANBU following Sasuke of course observed our discovery of certain methods, including tree walking, water walking, and a few tricks we really wanted to learn. We agreed not to bring any of it up in front of Naruto until his control was closer to where it needed to be so he didn't struggle as much and get frustrated with himself.

That didn't stop me from practicing chakra strings in the privacy of my own apartment. Hell yeah did I want to be able to control things from a distance. Chakra strings were only learned for those who wanted to use puppets, which I thought was rather short sighted. You could throw around paper bombs like candy, directing them with that, not to mention curving a kunai mid-air, or determining a set strike pattern for an entire handful of shuriken. Also, you lost your weapon? Big bad guy in the way? No biggie, just send a flying spider web of chakra after it and suck it back to you. Also, spider webs made out of chakra. How stellar of a trap would that be? I you make the strings small enough and conserve how many you use then only a sensor would be able to find it. Making chakra strings was easy enough at first. But getting them to behave how I wanted, take the shape that I wanted, and move, was difficult enough, never mind actually detaching them. They wanted to die, disappear into nature chakra the moment I detached them from my main system. I figured I would probably have to use a seal to get that to work eventually but I was going to be ninja spiderman even if it killed me.

As for seals, I went to work on those, only small ones at first, treading lightly until I figured out what would blow up, what meant it was going to blow up, and when failure meant melt down. Fuinjutsu was a dangerous art, playing around with it was no small thing. I just couldn't help it though. I was so impatient to move forward, get better, improve, become a real shinobi. I was just like the boys in that aspect. When we learned our first jutsu, the henge jutsu, I was over the moon. Of course, Sasuke already knew how to fucking breathe fire, so this wasn't as impressive to him, but he still liked that we were moving forward.

He wasn't the complete dick headed gloomy emo 'avenger' he would have been, but he was still mopey and determined to get stronger so that he could find out why his clan was killed and what was really going on. Which was fine, honestly. I wasn't expecting him to just be 'okay', not after that trauma. Naruto was just as cheerful as expected, with somehow having obtained the iconic goggles at some point. I already had a beanie, so I wasn't worried about it, though I teased Sasuke about his jealous glancing at them every now and then. They were both young, and they both figured it was a good object to use as a pretend hite-ate.

Our contact with actual ninja wasn't as much as I would assume in a ninja village. While we saw them every day jumping from rooftop to rooftop, shopping in the marketplace, or stumbling home from a mission we weren't in contact with them. We didn't interact with them, ask them questions, get advice, it didn't work like that. We didn't know any real ninja anymore now that the Uchiha were gone. Well, other than ANBU, and only I knew they were there, and I didn't even technically know them. they were watching out for our health, though. One day I thought it would be neat to figure out how to hide my chakra signature like some of the shinobi around town do, not that it stops me from 'seeing' them, but I figured it would be useful. So I dragged the chakra inwards, rather than along the passageways like I was doing a jutsu. Usually Chakra radiates around a person, like an aura. I sucked in inwards, towards my core. This ended with an ANBU crashing into my room, looking around for me. I was sitting with my legs crossed on the couch and promptly held my hands up, running through what had happened to get this one to react. OH. Yeah. I was in close proximity to their two charges, and I had probably either seemed to sustain injury of some sort for no reason, or disappeared if I'd done it like I'd intended. I resisted the urge to facepalm and made a mental note not to practice this while the ANBU were hanging around. This one felt familiar.

More so than the normal 'you hang around outside my house, sometimes in my kitchen, and eat my food'. I couldn't put my finger on it, so I dismissed it for the moment. Perhaps we walk past one another when I'm not paying attention enough to match at that point why they're familiar. The ANBU stared at me for several seconds and I finally broke out into a nervous grin.

"Eh, sorry. Just messing around."

I glanced at the seals to my right, all working ones that I had copied out of a book in the library. I glanced back to him, sheepishness intensifying, laughing nervously.

"Eh heh heh, oops? Erm, take some mochi for your troubles?" 

There was nothing for several seconds and then the guy was gone. No movement, no transition, just, gone. From the slight flux in chakra I would think it was shunshin, from the lack of leaves or debris left behind I would conclude that it was a very high level, often practiced one. The bowl on the table was now empty of mochi. I relaxed, sighing and moving the bowl to the sink, deciding to turn in for the night. It had already been entirely too eventful.

The next day class was boring as hell, the math being easy, the history simple, and the theory slightly stupid in my opinion. 'No emotion', 'follow the rules', 'the mission takes precedence', fuck you guys. We're human, rules were meant to be broken, and no man get's left behind. So there. The physical portion was much more exciting now that we were doing sparring. The clan kids had the obvious advantage, even if they were instructed to only use the academy style, and to leave their family stuff at home for now. I put up a good fight, usually being faster than my opponent, sometimes because I was smarter. I tried not to dismiss the civilians, or the kids who weren't part of the Rookie 9, just because they didn't have canon importance didn't mean they couldn't potentially kick my ass. Hyuuga Hinata was someone that I wanted to befriend, but since I was a friend of Naruto's she tended to also avoid/stalk me. I wanted to let her know that I knew she was there, but decided against it. She'd likely die of embarrassment. Also, while Sasuke's mother had been fine with us being his friend, Hinata's father was hardly going to be the same about some no name orphan, the kid of the rival clan, and the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. It was annoying, but at this point in her life she probably didn't have the fortitude to lie about where she'd been successfully, or hide it from him. Especially since those eyes of his could probably find her if she was within five miles of him. Creepy.

Sakura was also someone I had thought to befriend, if only to stop her from dieting and get her to start training properly and take everything seriously for once. Her and Ino were still friends, not yet broken up over Sasuke, and I hoped that the change in his attitude would keep them from splitting up. Really though, the only canon characters I interacted with were Naruto, Sasuke, Shikamaru, and Choji. Shino was in our class at the moment, and the only time I interacted with him was when we sparred. I tried to always be polite, unlike the other girls who sparred with him, but I wasn't sure if he even noticed. Either way, the effort was made. Choji never did stop inviting me over to his compound for food, and it picked up after my hospital visit and subsequent weight loss. I started eating more, and healthier, but really, it wasn't possible to gain weight other than muscle mass with the training program I was doing and trying to keep up with Naruto's endless Uzumaki energy.

It wasn't long before our second official year was over as well, and we were moving on to the next one. Time was moving swiftly, and I wasn't particularly sure how I felt about that.

~TimeLordOfPie


	9. Chapter 9

Despite all of our preparation graduation snuck up on us. Time passing was different for me than for everyone else, I had understood what was going on at so much younger an age, and from my time as an infant I knew boredom enough that I could really get lost in actual events and the movement of life. That said, I had noticed puberty coming along. Like kunoichi that found expanding chests hindersome (most of them, don't let that anime fool you) I used bandages to strap mine down mostly, what little I had anyway. Over that went my normal grey shirt, three quarter sleeves and very slight v-neck to keep it from feeling like I was choking.

I was a bit pissed that the boys were still taller than me, even though I was supposedly further along in development. I just wasn't meant to be a big person. As for menstruation, well, we're ninja. Blood is an issue when even the normal people can smell it from miles away. So there is a seal for that. It goes on the hipbone on your dominant side and keeps all of it away. I would have sold my soul at a crossroads for this in my past life, just saying. It also works for birth control, but I wasn't particularly worried about that, given that I was _twelve_.

No, my main concern these days is Naruto. Mostly about the exam and the sensei that would betray him. If I found a way to get him the shadow clone and fix the problem before he could get lured into the trap, that would work best. He also wouldn't learn about Kyuubi in such a harsh way. I wasn't looking forward to when he tried to tearfully break the truth to us. I already knew of course, but Sasuke's reaction wasn't set in stone.

Our classes began winding down in such a way that we were revisiting old things, like henge and replacement jutsu. The latter I liked. A lot. I was fond of just picking an object at random and then leaving it in my seat as I wandered away. If class got boring I would leave, simple as that. I got so good at it that there was no longer a flash of smoke. Prolonged practice, at home, in the practice fields during spars with my friends, and to get out of class meant that I had pretty much earned mastery over the basic E-ranked ninjutsu. So it wasn't unusual for Iruka-sensei, who was finally our teacher and had been for a couple of years now, to only belatedly notice that I was gone and there was a flower in my place, clumps of dirt and roots still attached. I'm told his reactions were legendary until he got used to it and just sighed before moving on.

Every year, for the past three years, I had been recommended by our teacher for early graduation. Each time I had refused to take the graduation exam. No matter that the Hokage's original deal with us still stood, the Chunin instructors were allowed to appeal to him to allow me to graduate. Apparently each year he'd said fine, but that it was up to me, like it always is when they want a student to graduate early. I think it annoyed and confused them when I refused each time. They knew I was bored, it was obvious with how I skipped class, but early graduation always fucked people up. True, it was usually because they were young and ended up emotionally stunted and I already had those mental problems anyway, but whatever. I wanted to stick with these guys. I _needed_ to be at the same chunin exams.

On the night before the exam I realized why this was a bad idea. I could fuck with canon. Like, more than what I'd actually intended. I had been a major Doctor Who fan before. I was either going to re-write time, or the events were going to be fixed and time was going to weed me out of the picture. My main concern was Team Seven. I had my grades in hand proclaiming me top Kunoichi in all areas, and top of everything but Taijutsu, where I was only barely trailing Sasuke. I was actualy 0.7 points away from having been Rookie of the year. Sakura was no longer top in Academics. The only reason she had gotten on Team Seven was because she had been _the best_ in bookwork. Rookie of the year, top Academic score, and the dead last. That was the formula. And I'd fucked it up. I hadn't been really paying attention, just assuming that Sakura would end up where she needed to be and not taking myself into account, as if I was once again just an observer through a computer screen. Well, that was stupid of me.

That was how Sasuke found me that night, hyperventilating over my report card. He took one look at the scene and started laughing, needing to hold on to the door frame to keep standing. It was a nice sight in the normally slightly broody pre-teen, but I could do without his uncharacteristic amusement being directed my way. When he recovered he sat down at the table across from me, amusement still obvious.

"What's wrong? You are aware that there's no way you aren't going to pass, right?"

I shot him a glare before shaking my head,

"I'm worried about team placements."

"Teams?"

I wanted to punch him.

"Do you two ever pay attention in class? All genin are put on teams of three under a Jounin instructor. There are traditional team types, and most are evened out by score. As Rookie of the Year-don't grin like that, yes we're proud, but it's not like you made Hokage-your score is highest, theoretically. Of course due to tradition and point totals you _should_ be placed with the highest academic score and the deadlast. You should be on a team with Naruto. And you _would_ have been on a team with me, but I fucked up. My scores too high. It would break the point barrier that's set on teams to prevent overpowering one aspect. The three of us would never be put on a team together. I should have realized sooner and dumbed down some of my scores."

I scowled to myself at the lie and only snapped out of it when Sasuke sighed,

"There's really no point in worrying over it, is there? I mean, it's a bit late to do anything about it."

He was right, and I hated it. So I gave him food then went to bed.

The next day dawned and I made sure to walk to school with Naruto and Sasuke, sitting between the two while we waited for the exam. Both of us could feel the despair radiating off Naruto when it was announced that the jutsu portion would be the clone jutsu. The time to mess with events had passed. There was nothing I could do about it at this point. So I killed the written portion, the Taijutsu portion, the weapons portion, and also the jutsu portion. Iruka-Sensei offered me a sort of resigned smile as he handed me the headband,

"You pass, congratulations."

He mumbled under his breath as I left,

"Even though you never really stayed for class."

I snickered on the way out, having been near the first to go. Since I didn't have a surname my first name was used in the alphabetical order. I saw Shino outside, wearing his headband already and speaking with people who were obviously his parents. I went near the tree with the swing to wait for my poor, end of the alphabet friends, and was surprised when Shino approached me, parents watching closely.

"Congratulations Asuka-san, on your passing."

His usual odd speech pattern didn't follow so I could only assume that he was trying very hard to be 'normal' at the moment. Strange. I nodded to him politely, smiling as well.

"You too, Shino-san."

I never was sure what to say to him. The static coming off him for all the chakra in his bugs made it difficult to focus on him with any sort of chakra sense, so I usually tried not to. He hesitated next to me and I knew that he had something else that he meant to say, but couldn't quite get it out. To save him the embarrassment of awkward silence I brought out one of the boxes of food I'd brought for the day,

"Mochi? In celebration? Your family members over there are welcome to have some as well."

Being shinobi, they heard, and used the excuse to swiftly get closer. Shino took some mochi, as expected, and I ignored the kikaichu that sampled the mochi before each person ate it. Ninja are supposed to be suspicious. For all I knew they weren't checking for poison, the bugs were just nosy and wanted to know how awesome it tasted. I wasn't sure where to go from there, but luckily Shino's father picked up the conversation,

"So you are the Asuka we hear about every now and then. Shino says you are the top of your year, despite being of no name."

It was rather rude to bring attention to the fact that someone didn't have a family to the extent that they had no surname, but there was no offense meant, and it didn't bother me, I'd had family in another life and I had Naruto and Sasuke, so I didn't exactly feel cheated. So I instead shrugged,

"I'm not the Rookie of the Year, if that's what you mean. I'm in second place."

The man nodded slightly,

"Indeed. It is still an accomplishment for someone in your situation."

I probably should have been angry about this, but me being me I felt amused instead.

"Not particularly, just the result of a lot of effort."

I was saved at that point by Sasuke appearing at my shoulder,

"Sorry to interupt, but have you seen Naruto? I've been looking for him for a while now."

The area was now filled with families congratulating their kids, but Naruto was nowhere to be seen. I frowned, that was quicker than I had expected. I nodded to Shino and his family,

"Sorry to leave so abruptly, it was lovely meeting you."

I pushed through the crowd a bit, closing my eyes for a second, looking for Naruto. There were a lot of people in the area, and I wasn't the best at tracking people through crowds yet. But he was like the sun among glow sticks. He wasn't here.

"He's not here, are you sure he's already finished?"

He nodded, grimacing,

"Iruka-sensei already packed up and left the building, all the students are done testing."

I sighed,

"Alright, let's check the apartments then."

Before I could move Sasuke stuck a hand out, pointing to the hite-ate I still had clutched in my hand.

"Aren't you going to put that on?"

I looked it over, shrugging before tying it deftly around my right arm. I would have worn it like Sasuke was, a normal headband, but I really didn't want to take my beanie off and my forehead wasn't big enough for the both of them. Around my neck like Hinata was also not an option, I needed to be able to nervously fiddle with that green necklace. A belt, like Lee and Guy, just didn't fit in my comfort zone. Hence, arm.

We made our way over the rooftops to the apartment, finally able to use them now that we had earned the headbands. I slipped in through my window, Sasuke following.

"Well?"

I shook my head,

"He's gone, hasn't been back since he left with us this morning."

I still had my weapons pouch on my left leg and equipment pouch at my waist from the test, and I didn't bother to remove them. I may well get us involved in a fight today.

"Come on, I've got a really bad feeling about this."

Seeing as the last 'really' bad feeling I had ended with his clans' massacre he shut up and followed closely behind, looking on guard. We walked the streets through town, Naruto still technically not being allowed to use the roof pathways, assuming he didn't pass. I walked through town, eyes closed, focusing on the little trails of static-y light that meant people had passed through. I found several criss-crossing trails that belonged to our ANBU guard and wondered why they were traveling in a pack today if they weren't watching Sasuke or Naruto. Perhaps they had other charges, I hadn't really considered that before.

The Shinobi that saw probably knew what I was doing, with Sasuke taking my arm in his and making sure I didn't run into anything while trying to catch a whiff of him. Finally I stopped, sighing. When I opened my eyes I realized that it was dark.

"Huh. Has it really been that long?"

Sasuke nodded, looking like he was bored out of his mind but still slightly hyped up about the situation. I glanced around us before entering a cafe that was open late for Shinobi, flopping down in a booth and ignoring the old civilian woman who muttered about how I should act more like a lady and less like a disgrace. I ordered tea and Sasuke glared at me.

"Why are we drinking tea? Naruto's missing!"

I shot him a look.

"We both know that the clone jutsu takes too fine of chakra control for Naruto's stupid large reserves to allow. We also know that it was the deciding factor for graduation. He would be sad, he would be angry. What does he do when he's sad or angry?"

"...disrupt the peace."

I rolled my eyes,

"He plays pranks on people. The fact that we haven't heard anything about one, or even seen it means that he's probably still in the planning stage. When he makes a move, we'll know it, and we'll go from there in finding him. For now, I'm hungry."

Like always he admitted I was right by slumping down and moodily sipping tea. I was expecting it, but I still jumped slightly at the alarm. Sasuke looked like he wasn't sure whether to run towards the sound immediately or punch a wall first.

"You think that's the sign we were looking for?"

I snorted my tea,

"Yeah, probably. Too bad it's telling us to proceed home and sit there like good little children."

He looked affronted and I sort of agreed, but I paid the bill and jumped to the rooftops, with him following closely behind.

"Jounin and Chunin are reporting in, Genin are to stay the fuck out of the way. I really hope Naruto isn't involved with this. We're about to find out, though."

"I thought you said we were going home?"

"We are. If he's there, he isn't involved. If he isn't, well, he could still not be involved. I don't really expect him to follow orders like 'go inside and hide'. He'll be fine wherever he is though."

The confidence I felt from _knowing_ he would be okay showed in my tone, helping Sasuke to relax. We stayed in my apartment playing Shogi, crap television shows playing in the background. When the alert was lifted we still didn't relax completely, not until I felt a certain chakra signature sneak into the window of his apartment. I picked the lock, bursting in like I owned the place. We practically lived in one another's apartments anyway.

"Do you have any _idea_ how worried we were?"  
Sasuke snorted,

"She means how worried _she_ was."

I turned to glare at him, ignoring how Naruto had frozen in the act of reaching into the refrigerator for a drink like a child caught red handed.

"Please, don't give me that shit, you were worried too."  
I turned back to Naruto, rolling my eyes,

"Don't drink that, it's expired. All the good food is probably in my apartment, you know that."

The unspoken 'where the hell were you' sat in the air around us until he cracked and told the whole story. I kept any reaction hidden, but Sasuke struggled with it, asking questions.

"So wait, they took this-this, demon, and they put it inside you?"

Naruto nodded warily and Sasuke exploded,

"Why the hell would they do that?"

He seemed more angry over the fact that his friend was a victim than the fact that his friend contained a demon. Naruto relaxed but shot me a look. I made sure to plaster confusion on my face.

"Oh. Well, explains a bit. Double layers of chakra, seal on your stomach. Had wondered if you knew about that. Answer is apparently no."

Naruto cried a bit, still unable to comprehend acceptance from us, even after all this time. It seemed like I had failed a bit in raising him in a sort of loving family environment then. Not that I can be blamed, I was only a few months older than him, I couldn't properly take the place of a parent. That night we built the fort out of my couch, something we hadn't done in a very long time. It was probably going to be our last night as children.

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


	10. Chapter 10

The day of team placements I stared in the mirror long and hard. I hated this face. I found so many flaws in it, even though I'd heard gossip that seemed to lean towards being jealous of me, though others were hateful. I couldn't help but hate it, too. This face still didn't seem like _mine._ But I got over it for the day, putting on my now standard outfit, falling into the ninja habit of wearing the same sort of thing every day. After a few instances failed training I'd learned that it was less laziness on the manga author's part and more that it was easier and cheaper to buy the outfits in bulk for when they were eventually ruined with either rips or blood.

For one final time we walked to the academy together, Naruto and Sasuke arguing with one another and generally just being themselves, but I felt like I was walking the green mile. No matter how this went, it was going to suck. If I got on the same team as them then I was going to be close enough to help, but I was going to fuck canon over. The other option was that I be put off with a bunch of other kids that came from civilian backgrounds and our little family would be broken up. The best that could happen to me from there was that I could somehow find a mentor to keep me out of the Genin Corp or from repeating yet another year at the Academy. If I was lucky I could get someone relatively important. If I wasn't I was going to rot in the Corp while Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura went on with canon events outside of my reach.

When we entered there was a bit of a hush from the Sasuke fangirls, during which Kiba decided to start yelling.

"Oi, Naruto, what do you think you're doing here? Only those who _passed_ were supposed to come back."

Well, that was rude. And uncalled for. I wanted to stick my tongue out at him but the adult in me wouldn't allow for it. So I settled for standing in the background while Naruto yelled at him.

"Don't you see this headband, I passed, beleive it!"

I grabbed Naruto and Sasuke by the elbow and dragged them to an empty row of seats. I contemplated excusing myself to sit elsewhere so that Sakura could claim my seat and the anime would be fulfilled, but they would never have let me get away with it. Shikamaru sighed,

"How did you manage to do that, Naruto?"

The kid in question immediately started his nervous head scratching, while Shikamaru shot me a look, obviously suspecting I was behind whatever it was.

"Ah, well, you see, I earned it, Iruka-Sensei gave it to me."

I heard Ino scoff,

"Whatever Naruto, you were the Dead last, how did you manage to pull together a passing grade?"

I was unable to hold in my own Shikamaru-like sigh.

"Really, Ino-san, why do you insist on belittling him? I always thought you had a thing _against_ bullies."

It was true, she had always said how much she hated bullies, usually a jab at Ami and her crew, but this made her wince, a if she hadn't realized that Naruto did indeed count as a person. She, and everyone else, didn't seem to have any respect for the kid, what with dropping the honorifics without the appropriate relationship, or permission. Some of the other girls whose names I didn't know, because I honestly didn't have a chance to interact with them before, glared at me for seemingly insulting their ring leader. Before they could really react Iruka-Sensei arrived. I realized that at this point the Jounin were probably looking at us through the Hokage's creepy crystal thing. Ew.

Everyone dispersed to take a seat, those sitting already watching Iruka-Sensei warily. It was then that it hit me, I'd accidentally robbed Sasuke and Naruto of their hilarious first kiss scene. I resisted the urge to facepalm, aware that we were being watched and it would seem more than a bit odd. I couldn't remember where they were watching from, I did a quick scan of the walls where they met with the ceiling, unable to pinpoint any area that housed slightly more chakra than the rest of it. That was one bitchin crystal ball. Probably used nature chakra or some shit.

I waited rather impatiently with everyone else while Iruka got his shit together, ignoring what he

was saying for the most part, but keeping an ear peeled for my name. I almost felt ill, waiting for it.

"Team 6, Nakajima Yuichi, Asuka, and Takahashi Satoru. Team 7, Uzumaki Naruto, Sakura Haruno, and Uchiha Sasuke."

A little piece of my soul spiraled into the abyss when I heard it, even as Naruto was praising what sounded like a ramen god that he got his crush and the kid that was practically his brother. Sakura was in a corner somewhere squealing, and Ino was complaining right over Iruka-Sensei's reading of the list. I could barely stomach all of it, even as Sasuke elbowed me in the side,

"You alright?"

I met his blank look, knowing him well enough to recognize worry, and snapped my shit together, smiling crookedly.

"Yeah. I mean, I knew we wouldn't be on the same team, but two out of three is better than nothing I guess."

He scoffed, bumping his shoulder into mine and smiling slightly.

"It doesn't matter if we're on the same team or not, we're still family."

It was the kind of anime-worthy moment that was heart wrenching to be in the middle of and I couldn't help but smile genuinely. I managed to keep that smile through standing up and surrendering my seat to a flushed and victorious looking Sakura, and even managed to keep a small version of it when I settled in between the two boys I'd been assigned to a team with. I knew both of them vaguely from taijutsu practice, where we would all be pitted against one another based off names in a hat.

Yuichi was tall, gangly and awkward he didn't know where his limbs were going, only that it wasn't quite where he was telling them to go. His brown hair was cut close enough to his head that I could only barely tell the colour and his eyes were large watery, as if constantly on the verge of tears. He was a year older than everyone else, having failed the year before and decided to retake a year at the academy rather than be sentenced to the genin corp, where dreams go to die. While his taijutsu level was at the bottom of the class he was third in line when it came to theory.

Satoru on the other hand was a clan kid, of sorts. While there was no Takahashi clan Kunoichi class gossip had informed me that his father had married an Akimichi. The Akimichi were a laid back clan, so it didn't surprise me that he didn't have their name, it happened like that with some clans. Even if his name didn't give him away his size certainly did. He looked the part of an Akimichi, and I took that to mean he had learned the clan ninjutsu despite not having their name.

After going through what I could remember of their skills and performances, and discreetly checking the class rankings still displayed on the wall, an epiphany hit me like a freight train. Satoru's name was at the bottom. Close enough that it was a slight surprise he was sitting next to me. I suspected politics at play. Clan kids didn't fail. It just didn't happen. There wouldn't be Nara shinobi outside of wartime otherwise, they'd fake stupid right through the test to get out of work. But with Satoru at the bottom near Naruto, Yuichi near the middle like Sakura, I could see where this was going. They had followed the same damn formula and put me in as Sasuke.

I stewed over that while the rest of the teams were announced, and observed my new teammates, keeping an eye on Sasuke and Naruto as I did. Naruto was pestering Sakura, while Sakura was attempting to talk to Sasuke, who was shooting Naruto desperate looks that we knew to be pleas for salvation, but that anyone else probably mistook for annoyance. Uchiha expressions are a difficult thing to gauge. I snorted under my breath at their antics before Jounin began to arrive and collect their students. Ours was right at the front of the charge. Standard Jounin uniform, black hair tied back in a low pony tail, green pupil-less eyes, he was unfamiliar.

'Ota Isao', as he had introduced himself before snapping for Team Six to follow him, was an unimpressive individual. He was ranked as a Jounin, and given a genin team, so he had to have _something_ to him, but his chakra was foreign, so he most likely wasn't Anbu, and had happened to not be in the Hokage tower whenever I'd followed Naruto when he was on a Hokage bothering crusade. Satoru was surprisingly the first to leap out of his seat and follow the jounin, dare I say it, swaggering out of the room. Yuichi followed after him, not exactly enthusiastic, but confident, he knew vaguely what was going to happen next after all. I couldn't help but hang back for a second to look at the newly formed Team Seven, taking in their squabbling for only a moment before turning away and following the rapidly moving chakra signature of my new sensei.

He led us silently through Konoha, directly to a deserted training field, and I couldn't help but wonder what the hell he thought he was doing. We hadn't even had time to speak to one another, let alone him. Isao-sensei stood in the middle of the training field, eyeing us for a few seconds before pointing to Yuichi,

"You, Nakajima. This is your second time being assigned a genin team, why did you fail before?"

The jounin's voice was scratchier than I expected, and a quick chakra-enhanced whiff confirmed the suspicion, he was a smoker. A surprisingly common vice among shinobi. One would think they'd hate the scent clinging to them, but I suppose they probably have ninja ways of getting rid of it. During my inane thought spiral Yuichi jerked to attention, managing to force out a steady answer after a half second of pause for breath.

"We were assigned endurance training as our test, one of my teammates quit halfway through and the rest of us failed by default."

Isao-sensei sniffed and shook his head absentmindedly,

"I dislike those sorts of tests. _Endurance._ As if that's what makes a shinobi."

His eyes next hit Satoru, and I knew something was up. Body angles, slight differences in expression, they knew one another. It was part of kunoichi training, the sort of undercover mission women went on as the 'fairer and weaker sex', we were give preliminary instruction on how to read people. What I could read from this was a conspiracy. But fine, so what if Satoru knew our sensei, now he had to share.

Isao-sensei didn't hold back questioning the kid, though.

"You, Takahashi . You failed almost all of your practical exams. Why?"

Satoru was taken aback, but not for long, shrugging and running a hand through shoulder length bushy hair, grinning up at the man.

"Because I didn't see the point in practicing the jutsu. They're useless to me, they don't fit in my fighting style, so I didn't waste time on them."

"I see."

I wasn't exactly dreading what he was going to say to me, because as far as I was concerned my bases were covered. Was he going to ask why I didn't surpass the Uchiha? Really? It was expected for everyone to trail behind the guy, it wouldn't cross his mind. And frankly I didn't think I'd done anything stupid in the public eye lately, doing life over again with an adult brain meant that I was pretty chill for a twelve year old. I probably shouldn't have met his eyes so calmly though, because the moment I did I sensed irritation.

"And you..." After a second of thought he skimmed over my lack of surname and went straight to his question. "How did you convince the taciturn Uchiha to tutor you to such effect?"

That is one hell of an assumption, was my first thought, but my second was that it was understandable, in a way. These people were used to clan kids excelling, I hung out with the best of all of them on a regular basis, practically lived with him. It would be possible that someone could believe that my success was entirely because of that association. It still irked me.

"I received no tutoring."

"Hm. You're a good liar, there were no outward signs of it at all. I would recommend not wasting that talent by being blatant."

Fucker. I scowled at him, but couldn't hold it against him too much, it wasn't like it was a usual thing for an orphan with no name to rise up and excel. I tried to ignore the names Orochimaru and Jiraiya floating around in my head, for all I knew they had surnames, unlike myself, because for a while I hadn't known Tsunade had belonged to some grand clan with Uzumaki blood to boot. Sometimes a first name is enough when you're talking about legends.

Isao-sensei sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and watching us calmly with those oddly Sakura-like green eyes,

"I have my doubts, like every jounin sensei, so like every jounin sensei I'm going to assign a test of my own to search for what I believe to be core shinobi values or skills."

With his left hand he reached into his kunai pouch, and I took note of the dominant side, though he most likely was trained equally with both sides, it pays to know which one someone leans to. I easily caught the scroll tossed in my direction, feeling with invisible, neutral chakra fingers and finding a few of the familiar signs of seal work, keeping half an ear on his explanation.

"Your 'mission' is to see that scroll safely to the end point in training ground three. Your opposition is me. Open the scroll only if you feel like dying today. I'll give you a three minute head start. Begin."

I didn't hesitate, shoving the scroll into my own kunai pouch and grabbing my teammates by the arm and tugging them out of the clearing, judicious application of chakra to my muscles made sure they came with me, and I didn't dare take to the trees without knowing first what they were capable of. Instead I started running, turned East and pulling my chakra down tight, near my core, wincing a bit at how blatantly my teammates shown in comparison still, a beacon for the opposition.

Satoru was tugging his arm away instantly,

"What the hell, who put you in charge? We're not even going the right way!"

"It could be argued I was put in charge when handed the scroll, the reason for our mission. And we were headed this way because of the time of day. Training ground six is in use right now, I don't think I need to explain why it would be a bad idea to run straight through that."

Satoru kept pace beside me, with Yuichi slightly behind on the other side, at least keeping in formation even if Satoru wouldn't. The clan kid rolled his eyes at me, thrusting out a hand and making a 'gimme' motion with his fingers.

"Hand it over. Everyone knows that you're curious, and you know the phrase about the cat and all. You're probably going to open it and trigger some explosive seal."

"Oh please, it's only a marker seal. It'll tell him how many times it was opened, with a chakra sample of who did it, but that's it."

He snorted,

"Well excuse me if I don't believe you on that."

Understandable really.

"You know if we're going to be on a team together you'll need to learn how to trust me."

"Oh, I doubt I'm going to have that problem."

I glanced at him, honestly confused. There was a very obvious trust problem, so what the fuck? I looked over at Yuichi, who was looking resigned, as if he knew what Satoru was saying and had expected nothing less. Before I could even form a question to ask he sighed,

"I'll hang back and set some traps, I had the highest score in that, of the three of us, I believe."

I let him go, or, well, I didn't protest him leaving. I was well aware I had no say so in this 'team'. I was the highest scoring, but that was it, and shit like test scores didn't matter in the 'real world'. Even if I regularly kicked their asses in taijutsu I had no idea how I would fare in a no holds barred melee. For all that I had been taught Sasuke's fire jutsu, and regularly dabbled in relatively advanced seal work, I'd never had to use it in a spar against anyone but the two boys I was stupidly familiar with. It's hard to say what was me knowing how they think, and me knowing what to do in a fight.

I kept a metaphorical eye on Yuichi's progress, as well as Isao-sensei, frowning when Yuichi stopped. It turned to a full on grimace when Isao-sensei entered the same area as him, but descended into confusion when Yuichi moved closer instead of fleeing.

"I think Yuichi-san is speaking with sensei, I don't know what he's up to."

Satoru gave me a strange look and I was briefly reminded of how few people actually knew I was a sensor at all, never mind my range and accuracy. Yuichi had started leaving the training ground areas by the time Isao-sensei started moving and I could feel my expression falling. Did Yuichi have something in mind, like trying to lead Isao-sensei away, or was he under a genjutsu? His chakra didn't feel out of whack, but it _was_ a good bit of distance to try and feel that over.

I kicked up our pace, trying to fight Satoru's grabbing hands even as Isao-sensei approached, the speed of a jounin is no small thing, and I could feel terror encroaching even as I reminded myself it was just a test, just training. I wasn't sure how I was going to get Yuichi back with us anytime soon, there was nothing left for it but to just hope he made it back on his own. Satoru didn't cease reaching for the scroll, right up until Isao entered the training ground we were passing through. My teammate turned towards our sensei, stopping and I couldn't help but let out a quiet curse. There was no way he was going to hold a jounin off for any stretch of time. The jounin reached for a kunai and leapt for Satoru, who stood there dumbly leaving me no choice but to attempt something slightly experimental.

The replacement jutsu was meant to be used with an object of more or less equal size of mass with the person doing the jutsu. Living things were capable of resisting, so using another shinobi was usually a bad idea, and logs were the widespread choice of the shinobi who lived in forest areas like we did. That said, I had run the calculations of roughly how much air it would take to replace with a human being of my size, and it was a lot. So with a tug of chakra I was between Isao and Satoru, the air displacement causing a sound like a gunshot from another world, and taking roughly three fourths of my chakra reserves. Wind whipped around for several seconds in the place I'd vacated, sending all of our hair flying around our faces.

It would take a lot of refinement, and even then it most likely wouldn't be very useful to anyone other than a Sanin or an Uzumaki in regular combat, and they wouldn't even need it what with having shunshin. But for a spur of the moment 'shock the hell out of somebody' move, it worked like a charm. I caught Isao's blade on my own kunai and just managed to deflect it when he stepped back, momentary look of surprise fading into his previous neutral expression. Before I could do more than draw a senbon and prepare for something else hopefully surprising he spoke.

"I had hopped you would make the right choice." I was hoping it was just trash talk, until he replaced his kunai and crossed his arms. "You fail."

The ache from sudden chakra expenditure almost completely disappeared at the burst of disbelief that flooded me, my protest drowning in my throat and dying unheard as he continued, my grip on the senbon tightening.

"No matter your proficiency in jutsu or chakra control your core values are nonexistent. You failed to listen to your elders advice when they requested to hold the scroll, and you failed to follow the most important rule, 'Complete the mission'. You risked everything for nothing, and I can't condone passing a child playing at being a shinobi. The team had already failed, but I had hoped I could recommend you for an apprenticeship. I was wrong. My only recommendation is the same I gave Nakajima-san. Learn to abide by shinobi rules, or remain a civilian."

With that he stalked away, Satoru following without hesitation. It was that motion that sent klaxons blaring in my mind and fury bubbling. It was just like Kakashi's previous non-teams, failed because he didn't want to become a sensei. Isao hadn't wanted a team, Satoru had needed an apprenticeship, so Yuichi and myself had become casualties of politics. Isao had been actively looking for an excuse, not a reason, to fail us, and I'd handed it to him on a silver platter by assuming all shinobi must work like Hatake Kakashi. Probably one of the stupidest assumptions I'd made in my life, along with thinking I was the Sasuke of this team. Satoru was the Sasuke, I wasn't even ranked as the Sakura.

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


	11. Chapter 11

The walk back to the academy was slow and painful, senbon still clutched in hand. Slow because of the near chakra exhaustion, painful because of the chakra exhaustion _and_ the mental agony involved in 'what the hell do I do now?'. Even as tired as I was I could feel Naruto's chakra still in the same place at the academy, no doubt waiting for Kakashi. At a crossroads I hesitated, looking in the direction of home for several seconds before curiosity got the better of me and I turned toward the academy. The lead in my chest made the trip feel like it took hours, and I could help but grimace at every cheerful chakra signature that brushed up against me.

When I was halfway there I noted a familiar chakra signature joining my friends, and when all four chanaged elevation to what could only be the roof I concluded it must be Kakashi. He'd been a part of our regular Anbu patrol, after all. I took my time, leaning against the entryway to the academy long enough for them to finish up their meeting, and when I noted Kakashi's chakra balling up and 'hiding' I proceeded to the roof, using the stairs because my body hated me after that replacement technique fiasco. By the time I got there Naruto and Sasuke were arguing, as per usual, and Sakura was watching with a slight bit of annoyance that gave me hope for their future as a team. The scene certainly explained why Kakashi was spying rather than bailing.

It didn't take them long to notice me, probably because I was laughing at them. They straightened up, and upon seeing me frowned almost in tandem. It would have been creepy if they'd given me time to react. Naruto struggled out from underneath where Sasuke had somehow managed to sit on him, shimmying to freedom and launching to my side,

"Neh, Asuka what's with the face?"

I scoffed,

"Face? What face? It's my face, I only have the one."

Sasuke rolled his eyes,

"Just tell us what happened. Did your jounin sensei tell you about the test too?"

I shrugged, looking away from them and focusing on the needle I was twirling between my fingers, shame keeping me from meeting their eyes.

"Yup. And he failed us almost immediately."

The uproar was instant, and I could feel despair emanating from Sakura's general direction.

"But you were the top of the class, how could _you_ fail?!"

I glanced up at her for half a second, struggling to find the words that would reassure her without giving away that I actually _knew_ they should be fine.

"From the way he spoke the test depended on what each sensei categorized as 'important shinobi values'. He was very much a 'rules' guy. Gave me a scroll and said our 'mission' was to take it a few training grounds over. One teammate gave up almost immediately after we started, and the Akimichi who isn't called Akimichi was in on it the whole time apparently, because he's got an apprenticeship now. Not that I knew that of course. I had the scroll and when Isao went after Satoru I went after Isao, so I personally failed for abandoning the mission. Or was it endangering? Who cares. I wouldn't have wanted him as a sensei anyway, with an attitude like that."

Naruto, predictably, was the first to rave.

"That bastard! How dare he! Konoha has three man teams because teamwork is the foundation of the village, that's what you said Iruka-sensei said in class! I even got that right on the exam! His hair is going to be purple for the next three weeks, Believe It!"

Sasuke's eyes were narrowed and he looked out across the village with a scowl,

"You won't redo the year at the academy."

It wasn't a question, he knew I couldn't stand spending another year skipping class and passing tests, it would drive me insane. Of course he didn't know _why_ I was so desperate to be in the next chuunin exams, but he wasn't exactly wrong with most of his guesses.

"And the genin corp isn't an option."

I flipped the senbon one last time before stowing it away and straightening my black beanie, absentmindedly brushing off the clinging bits of leaves.

"It's my _only_ option until I can find someone willing to recommend me for an apprenticeship. Isao said if I wasn't going to follow shinobi rules I should just be a civilian, so there's no help from that quarter. I'd ask Iruka-sensei, but I dread hearing his answer seeing as I usually left during the first half of his class. My only option is the corp, and hope luck smiles upon me."

It went unsaid that my other option, Mizuki-sensei, wasn't actually an option. The only ones who could testify to my skill levels would be those who I had run missions with, or trained with. Seeing as I'd never run a mission, and wouldn't get a chance to be invited to train with anyone of the appropriate rank until I had connections...it was a mess. I couldn't get connections without first _having_ connections. The Anbu who watched over Sasuke and Naruto wouldn't work because I had never officially 'met' any of them.

I didn't even notice Kakashi had been there the entire time until his signature was gone. I felt a pang of guilt for that, I'd forgotten he was there, if I'd remembered I likely would have delayed my story. From what I could remember his father had died because of a mission that had gone wrong remarkably like my test had, and those kinds of memories should just stay buried. I was just so damned used to his chakra signature hanging around back in his Anbu guarding days that it hadn't really registered for me after the initial realization that he was hiding.

Naruto was scowling when I looked at him next so I clapped my hands together before glancing at all three of the genin in front of me.

"Alright, my team flopped but yours doesn't have to. What do you say we all get some ramen?"

Cheering from the orange corner was immediate, and Sasuke sighed before rolling his eyes to the heavens,

"Why do you enable him?"

"If your team has ramen together tonight I'll make that tomato casserole for dinner tomorrow."

He noticed the stipulation and turned his eyes on his fan girl, favorite food hanging in the balance.

"We're having ramen tonight."

It was more of an order than anything, but the stars in the girl's eyes were evident while she nodded vigorously. That settled, I looped one arm through Sakura's, and the other through Naruto's, letting Sasuke lead the way, ironically enough. Even nearing chakra exhaustion Sakura couldn't pull away to walk beside her crush, but that was probably more because she was distracted by whatever strange ramen-praising chant Naruto was performing than due to any strength on my part. They were going to be a proper team if it killed me, so I positioned Naruto in the middle of the three, and myself beside Sakura. I didn't need her throwing me jealous looks the whole time because I got to sit beside 'her Sasuke-kun'.

Ramen was something I was fond of, though no one loved the stuff as much as Naruto. I managed to make my way through two bowls, a feat I'd never before accomplished in my life, and when I caught Sasuke's question expression I could only shrug and say I'd used a lot of chakra. Keeping out of the conversation was easier than I had expected it to be. Sakura was naturally prone to offering up information when it was needed and she knew it, and Sasuke and Naruto were bound to argue their points with each other, and by the third hour sitting at the ramen stand they were bickering with Sakura too. The shell shocked expression on her face after she won an argument against her crush that was in Naruto's favor was the sweetest victory I could have asked for that night.

Walking her home with Sasuke present probably sent her the wrong message, but it was unavoidable. The moment we had left her street behind Sasuke turned his eyes on me, and his elbow met my gut.

"You were trying to push the two of us towards her. Why?"

I barely stumbled at the hit, shoving my hands into my pockets.

"Because you're going to be a team. I recognized the chakra of your sensei hanging around, he's a teamwork kind of person, so if you three can work together then you'll be great, I know it. The next Sanin, I'm sure."

He scoffed, looking away from me and out across the village. I couldn't help but note it was in the direction of the Uchiha compound. Before either of us could dwell on it Orange coated arms were slamming down on our shoulders and dragging us into an equally orange coated body, trying to get a group hug and walk at the same time.

"Of course we're going to be great, and even if you aren't on our team of Awesome you're going to be great too! You've gotta, you're going to be one of my advisors when I'm Hokage, after all!"

That much loud right in my ear had me wincing, but I was smiling through it, because Naruto's cheer is infectious. Sasuke pushed him off, sending the blonde careening into me. We met the ground with a thud, a painful tangle of limbs not helped by the ache that was already there from that stupid jutsu I had tried. Naruto leapt up almost immediately to chase Sasuke through the streets, leaving me to pick myself up at my own pace and follow sedately with a sigh, muttering about 'dorks' under my breath.

It didn't take much cajoling to get them into their own apartments and into bed that night, with the test early the next day looming over them. I didn't have anywhere to be until ten the next morning, the deadline to report to the genin corp. I grimaced as I took my gear off, laying it neatly on the long, thin table by my bed. I had always known it was a possibility for me, as a no-name orphan, but it still stung a bit. Laying the headband down beside my beanie I couldn't help but feel a bit of pride for earning it at all, no matter how easy the academy portion of the test had been, and that I'd failed the rest of it.

I emptied my weapons pouch onto the table, organizing the kunai and senbon, as well as the tiny scrolls and thin brushes I carried. As much as I loved to whip out seals mid-fight it had been no use against Isao, I hadn't even had time to reach for ink. It reminded me of the ink beasts Sai would sketch out mid-melee. Some had to be pre-made because of sheer tedious complexity, others I was eager to get a chance to use. I was working on chakra scalpels, the scroll for the technique borrowed from the library the day after I'd gotten the headband, before I'd gone in to get the ID picture taken. It seemed like the perfect way to shear seals from a scroll without a weapon, if I could only get it to work.

It was among my sealing supplies that I found it, the scroll Isao had given me. He hadn't asked for it back, and I wasn't about to track him down to give it to him, no matter how easy it would be for me to find him. After a seconds hesitation I flicked open the scroll, tossing it across the room almost immediately. Nestled in the middle of the seal was: 'Give up'. Fuck that guy. He didn't know what was at stake here. Despite my exhaustion anger kept me awake for a while more, and when I finally did sleep it was to dreams filled with Yuichi drowning in puddles of his own blood while Satoru mocked him for failing again.

The next morning was sunny, but despite that I couldn't help but feel the green mile awaited me. I replaced all my equipment, knowing that I would likely be running low priority scrolls all over the village all day because I had the ability to find anyone at any point, but I didn't want to seem unprepared.

Naruto and Sasuke were already gone, likely waiting in the training grounds for their sensei who would probably be spying on them for a few more hours before finally revealing himself. It was silent as I gathered my things, shoved down a granola bar and some water, and locked the door behind me. The headquarters for the genin corp was located near the Hokage Tower and academy, most ninja headquarters were, actually. It made it easier to protect the villages most important things, her leader and her future.

Iruka-sensei had mentioned to us where to report should joining the corp appeal to us, and I had realized even then that it was phrased as such to conceal the existence of the jounin sensei tests. No one _wanted_ to join the corp. But I still found myself standing in front of the dull green double doors, psyching myself up to go inside. It took two minutes of internal pep talking to get the door open, and another eighteen seconds to actually walk up to the desk, manned by a genin who couldn't have been younger than thirty, wearing her hair long and unbound with fake eyelashes set in place.

"Asuka, genin, formerly of team 6, reporting."

The genin, most likely used to the tone of utter despair, just riffled through her papers, finally frowning when she got to one.

"Hm, says here that's not necessary. Report to the Hokage tower for assignment."

Well that was...unusual. I couldn't help but be suspicious as I wandered to the tower, brief terror flaring in me as I wondered if it was Danzo, after a decent sensor or way to get at the last Uchiha and Kyuubi vessel, but pushed it back easily enough. Surely if it were Danzo I wouldn't be reporting to the tower, there was no way he'd do shady shit like recruiting for the 'non-existent' Root under the Hokage's nose...most likely.

The walk to the tower took an age despite its proximity, and there was a small eternity of being bounced from desk to desk until I found myself in front of the Hokage himself. This wasn't the first time I'd met the man, far from it due to Naruto's influence, but I was painfully aware that this time I didn't have the cheerful blonde as a buffer. Oh, I wasn't the only one in the room, Anbu were abound and Chuunin were rifling through paperwork, with a few jounin thrown in as well.

I didn't even need to stutter out an excuse, heads went up when I entered the room and the Hokage gave me a beaming smile, pipe dipping down as he motioned me closer.

"Ah, Asuka-chan, I had wondered when you'd be in. I'm dreadfully sorry about your team results, but it's no matter. Someone has requested you for an apprenticeship. Do you accept?"

I should really, _really_ , ask who it is and what they specialize in. But it was this or eternal genin servitude.

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

I never quite got up the courage to call him 'grandpa' or 'old man' like Naruto did, but he smiled at me softly anyway.

"Good, good. I'll send for him then, just have a seat over near the red bookcases and he'll be here shortly."

One of the Anbu presences disappeared, and for a second I thought they'd gone to fetch the guy, but the same presence just went off to another room nearby and began taking the hallways back to our position. My eyes narrowed as I mentally followed the signals path, overlaying with a mental image of what I knew of the layout of the tower. The closer it got the more I could feel it, and the familiarity only became stronger until the person was right in front of me and I _knew_. I snapped back to the present, meeting his eyes.

" _You_."

I didn't dare mention Anbu or guard duty, or anything of the sort, not here, but I met brown eyes and pointedly touched a single finger to the ribbon at my neck. I finally had an answer as to who the mystery sender was. Or, well, a face. He had brown hair, shoulder length and his Konoha headband spread out like a bandana to keep it out of his eyes and cover the top of his head, a senbon hanging out of his mouth. With a sigh he motioned towards the door,

"Come on kid, we've got a lot to talk about."

I followed him after glancing at the Hokage and getting a nod and an encouraging smile in response. No harm in making sure I was following the right guy, after all. He lead me down the hall and out of the building, through the village in silence. Finally we reached a deserted training ground and he slumped to sit at the base of a tree, motioning that I follow. With a seconds hesitation I sat down opposite him, legs crossed under me. The silence endured for a few more moments as he looked up through the leaves and finally he sighed again,

"The name's Shiranui Genma. But I believe you knew me already by a different moniker."

This was the Anbu that crashed into my living room ready to start slaying when I tried hiding my chakra signature that first time, and now that I could feel his chakra up close and without that feeling of terror and shock distracting me I could tell it was the one hanging around the necklace I had been given. The _only_ gift I had ever been given, if you discounted the various scrolls Sasuke filched from the Uchiha compound and dumped wordlessly in my living room.

I grinned sheepishly,

"Eheh, I'm Asuka. Nice to meet you, officially, I suppose."

After a beat of awkward silence I screwed up the courage to ask a question.

"Um, Shiranui-san, why exactly did you request me for an apprenticeship?"

His expression was the closest to 'bitch please' that I'd seen yet in this place.

"You regularly routed out Anbu that were trying very hard to hide from you, and you were studying advanced fuinjutsu before you even entered the academy. You're exactly the type that needs to be given an apprenticeship when a genin team falls through."

"That doesn't answer my question, why did _you_ request me?"

He made a face, scrunching up his nose and shaking his head,

"A favor, kid. Old Anbu...teammate heard about your issue and came straight to me. I owed him, and now here we are."

The only one I could think of that was familiar from the old Anbu guard that had been near me recently was Kakashi, and in that moment of contemplation it all came clear. My eyes went from his bandana to the senbon in his mouth, mind flashing to the needle I'd been holding and the beanie on my own head, sighing in frustration. That scarecrow had cut and run for the first person he thought of who owed him a favor, and I'd accidentally shifted his thoughts toward this guy. I suppose I should be thankful Kakashi did anything at all about it, he didn't need to. I didn't expect he would.

All I could remember from the show about this particular guy was that he had been a proctor in the Chuunin exams when the other guy had been killed, and I couldn't even remember if he'd done a particularly good job at it. But he was Anbu, which had to mean _something_. So I pulled my nerves together and leaned back on my hands, observing my new teacher.

"So, Shiranui-sensei, where do we go from here?"

"Well first of all Genma will do, I'm not against Genma-sama."

I gave him a blank look until he cleared his throat and continued,

"Ah, first off we'll be going over what you know already and where to go from there."

Here he paused to rub the back of his neck,

"I've never had to be a teacher before. I'm a Tokubetsu Jounin, though no doubt I'll make the leap to full jounin once this apprenticeship is over. We're lucky that bastard chose me to call in a favor from because I've got some experience with sealing. Not much, but more than most shinobi, Konoha or beyond."

That was interesting, and a good sign for my future training. I nodded, and he continued.

"However I'm not the best person to train you for tracking, which is a good fit with the sensor thing, so I'll have to set up a few training session with someone who _would_ know. But for now, I believe a spar is in order."

I stood as he did, following him to the center of the clearing, mind already turning over plan after plan,

"Anything is allowed, Asuka-san, give it all you've got. Your goal is to land at least one hit."

Well that wasn't happening. I huffed, scowling when there was a cloud of smoke and then three copies of Genma were standing in front of me. One hand went to my supplies pouch as I leapt to the side, kunai sent flying in the direction of the clones, soaring through them as they faded out. Academy level illusion sort of clones then, he most likely wasn't giving this anywhere near his full attention. While that was slightly aggravating it would make it easier to catch him by surprise.

He was calm, a small smile on his face as he dodge waited to see what I would do, eyes widening as a scroll unfurled. Ink splashed against paper and I had a working seal in less than three seconds, enough to leap backwards into a tree and gain the high ground. I sheared the length of paper away from the scroll, tensing my legs underneath me and leaping across the clearing and over his head, sending a spark of chakra into the seal as I did and dropping it down on his head. He dodged, of course, but that wasn't the aim. Black smoke filled the clearing and I grinned to myself.

Most people were blind without their eyes, though a lot of shinobi were capable of using rudimentary echolocation and could enhance their sense of smell for finding people in shitty visible conditions, but those tricks couldn't hold a candle to a sensor's ability to 'see' without eyes. I would have to keep chakra surging under my skin of course, wary of changes in surrounding air pressure that would mean approaching projectiles, but I'd had some help from a rather enthusiastic Naruto and gleeful Sasuke, both were happy to blindfold me and use me for target practice with bright orange rubber balls.

I heard Genma sigh in the distance, along with a very Nara-like exclamation of 'troublesome' before I launched myself from my new position, chakra string attached to the tree I had left, anchored through the pre-prepared seal I'd slapped down. I threw a few Shuriken at him as I passed as a diversion from what I was doing. None of them met their mark, of course, but I wasn't expecting them to. After seven passes I dropped down on the far side of the string from him, holding up two fingers in front of my face.

"Kai."

Useful for fluctuating chakra and breaking genjutsu, and my favorite for activating and deactivating seals. The smoke cleared almost immediately, no chakra to hold it together. Genma turned and faced me, eyebrow raised.

"What, realized those little things weren't going to work?"

I shrugged, finger still raised.

"Never expected them to."

The last vestiges of smoke were carried away and he finally noticed the strings. I hadn't wasted any time making them small and invisible, not feeling the need this time. Before he could move I surged chakra into the hand seal, flaring the barrier into life, chakra connecting the seals and making a seven sided wall before the ceiling piece connected. He just stared at the yellow wall before looking back at me, face blank.

"You...you made this?"

I shrugged with one shoulder,

"Sort of. I bastardized a few bits of seals I've encountered, and then added my own flair to it. This barrier allows for the chakra of the castor, me, to enter or leave freely. Anything else, not so much. I didn't put near enough chakra into it for it to keep you in there indefinitely, but it's stable enough at the moment that I could probably get away with spitting grand fireballs into that five by ten space until I run out of chakra, the sun goes down, or you're crispy, either one."

He pointed down,

"Or I could tunnel out with an Earth jutsu."

I stared at him for a second before facepalming, loudly. The crack echoed through the clearing before I was muttering to myself,

"Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of fucking course, _Earth jutsu_ , fucking hell…"

He laughed, loud and long, and when I looked up there was finally a genuine smile on his face.

"I think that's about enough for this test. I didn't get to see much, but I've seen enough to know this apprenticeship can work, if we're willing to put in the effort."

I beamed at him, shattering the barrier with a flare of chakra, small sparks lighting and disappearing from where the tags self destructed after their task was done. He clapped his hands together, still grinning,

"Now, let's start off with some taijutsu practice!"

My own smile faltered and my eyes narrowed, a dark feeling coming over me. Why did that not sound like a good thing? Why did that expression look slightly evil?

~TimeLordOfPie


	12. Chapter 12

I understand why D-ranks drove Naruto out of his gourd. After a few weeks I was close to losing it, the only things that had kept me sane so far were the training sessions with Genma-Sensei. We did training more than I ran D-ranks, and for the record I was right about Taijutsu practice. It was the Hell I had been saved from by reincarnation, just come a few years late. It was through judicious eavesdropping that I found out Genma had been on a Genin team with Might Gai, and it all suddenly made sense. Training would consist of taijutsu until I couldn't stand, then seals and theory work while I regained the ability to hold up my own weight, after that was jutsu. Some days it was switched up and we'd stick one thing completely until I was perfect at it. At least one random day a week I'd show up and be dismissed for a rest day. Those were the days I ran D-ranks.

As a genin I was allowed to take certain missions, team or not. Genma likely didn't realize that apprentices don't get paid for training unless they're apprenticed to an organization or office, like the Hospital or T&I. The moment I made genin I ceased to receive the orphan stipend thing that Naruto, Sasuke, and I had lived off. Sasuke was fine because he could now access most of his clan's' funds as a genin, the rest would follow when he made Chuunin. Naruto would do alright because he was running D-ranks like a man possessed because of Kakashi's strange teaching style. So days when we finished early or didn't meet at all for 'rest' or because Genma had missions, I ran missions of my own, as many as possible. I broke a record with twelve in one day when trying to make rent. Ninja shit is fine, have me kill a guy in his sleep, but keep the financial shit away from me.

On the subject of killing someone, I'd never been tasked to do that, of course. No one under the rank of Jounin or Anbu is ever sent on a straightforward assassination mission. I didn't even get into a position where a real honest-to-ramen-god fight was necessary until my first C-rank. It was well before the much anticipated 'Wave Mission' and I rubbed it in the boys faces just a little bit as I gathered my things. Genma was waiting at the door, having told me to pack with a neutral expression on his face. Even as I was laughing at the boys downtrodden expressions I was mentally breaking down what was going on in my sensei's head.

With one final hug and promise to come back alive I shut the door behind me, leaving the boys in my apartment with the plans for what looked like an elaborate prank targeting a certain white haired sensei spread out across my kitchen table. Clever of them, to leave the evidence in my apartment, which was much more heavily fortified with seals. Not that any of it could keep out Sharingan no Kakashi, but then again he may not think to look there.

When we were out of the building I kept my gaze on my sensei out of the corner of my eye,

"So, why are we going on this mission if you don't want us to?"

He didn't bother asking how I knew, ninjas and all that. Instead he clamped his teeth down a bit harder on the senbon resting there and I winced for the health of his mouth.

"It was a special request for someone who's...worked with me before. I didn't want to drag you into it, but this is the closest we'll get to a no-risk C-rank in a while, so we may as well take advantage of the situation."

"I'm assuming this person is unpleasant?"

"...not quite."

I didn't understand what he meant until we reached the gate, and then I couldn't help but frown.

"Why the fuck would anyone at all need more than one jounin for babysitting duty?"

He lightly smacked the back of my head absently, as per the habit he'd picked up during his time around me. Every time there was a word that didn't jive with him he would swat at me. Sometimes I dodged, other times I didn't bother. Now was one of those times, as I was too distracted by the tall figure in the brilliant green jumpsuit waiting for us at the gate. Might Gai waved at us enthusiastically, the old man standing beside him watching the scene with unmistakable fondness.

We weren't necessarily the socially appropriate distance away before Gai began to shout,

"Genma, how wonderful to see you again! How grand that Moto-san has requested us again for a mission! And your youthful student as well!"

I put together a theory and spit it out immediately, which Genma had actually encouraged. It was a thing we did, he'd put forward a situation and I had less than five seconds to assess and give a solution, a theory at the very least.

"Old man hired the both of you when younger, you got along somehow, and your names where the only one's he knew when he needed to request an escort again."

He half nodded his head,

"Close. Moto-san was the client for my genin teams very first C-rank mission. He wanted to see how far we've come, even if Ebisu wasn't available. He was willing to wait for him to get back into the village, right up until the Hokage mentioned you." I looked up at him sharply as he continued, eyes narrowed, "He was more than thrilled to see the progress of my generation as well as that of the next. We're just lucky he didn't want Gai to bring his entire genin team as well."

"Entire? Did he bring one of them?"

A hand dropped down to ruffle my hair, stopped by the beanie and leaving the garment skewed to hell. I fixed it with a scowl as he laughed,

"As if Gai could pick and choose a favorite to bring out of his genin team."

I snorted, turning it to an unconvincing cough at the last moment.

"Riiiiight, like he wouldn't choose mini-Gai. Then again...might make the Hyuuga jealous, not that he'd admit to feeling such a base emotion I'm sure."

Genma elbowed me,

"Enough of that, what did the Hyuuga brat ever do to you?"

"Dis his cousin. She's such a sweet girl, and he's _such_ an asshole right now."

"Right now? You have a plan?"

"Meh."

He looked like he wanted to give one of his mini-interrogations, but we were entirely too close to the sensei of said problem so he let it go, raising a hand to wave at his old teammate.

"Gai, Moto-san, a pleasure as always. This is Asuka-chan, my little apprentice."

I bowed, more to hide the twitch my face did at the word 'little' than out of respect, coming up smiling genially.

"A pleasure to meet you, Moto-san."

He was old for this world, near seventy at least, Older than the Sannin and the Hokage. Easily one of the oldest people I'd ever seen, wearing flowing traditional robes of a deep blue, his long hair was white and pulled back by a leather band, with tanned skin leathery and wrinkled, though the lines were obviously from laughter and smiles, much like the one he wore currently.

"A pleasure to meet you as well, Asuka-chan. I must say I'm surprised, I don't often hear of kunoichi who manage to land apprenticeships beyond as genjutsu users or medic-nin."

I tilted my head for half a second, the word choice tickling something in the back of my brain, and took a closer look at the man's chakra, letting that phantom limb that controlled my sensing ability stretch. I didn't do it often anymore as I was professionally trained in it and made substantial progress, the stronger it was, in a village as filled with powerhouses as Konoha was it was usually asking for a panic attack.

He'd been a shinobi, and a good one. Most likely he'd retired due to an injury, or just because he got tired of it. I had no doubt he could kick my ass, which only raised more questions on why he needed an escort, though answered how he could have afforded three jounin, now two and a genin.

So I smiled at him, a crooked and genuine one this time.

"Guess I just got lucky."

He nodded sagely,

"A principal part of being a shinobi, luck is."

I decided I liked this particular old guy as we gathered our bags and set out. It wasn't the first time I'd been outside the village walls, we did survival training in the academy as a class, and Genma-sensei had dragged me around for his own version of it. But this was going to be the first time I'd traveled far enough away that I wouldn't be able to feel Naruto's chakra signature if I decided to look for it. That incident with Mizuki had been the closest thing, and even then I'd hung around near enough his apartment that the residual chakra was apparent. .

It was strange, walking along in near silence, just Gai and Genma speaking quietly with Moto-san whenever the mood struck him, with the writhing, roiling mass of chakra that was Konoha fading in the distance. I hadn't thought of it as Konoha being a village comprised of a large amount of those with developed chakra systems, just seeing it as home with a few shinobi running around. But the further we got the more the civilians dropped away and all that was left were a few brilliant dots.

Even half hidden, as he was attempting, Naruto was the last one to fade from my observation. He must be trying to prank Kakashi. I turned my metaphorical eye away from the village, mentally kicking myself, and instead centering my awareness around our group, reaching out in every direction. It was slow going, as much as Moto-san had been a shinobi before he was either incapable of traveling at his former pace, or didn't feel like it. After I had successfully managed to fade into the background I pulled out the book that had been in my equipment pouch when Genma-sensei came to get me. I couldn't read any of the high level sealing shit I was in the middle of because stuff like that doesn't leave the village for security reasons. This was just pure theory on elemental applications of chakra. It had been in the bookstore rather than the library, widely published though notoriously unpopular, and I could see why. Dry enough to make a desert look prosperous.

Reading and walking was cake for any decent academy student, a skill that usually came from cramming for a test on the morning walk to class. I paid half a mind to my surroundings, confident that no one could get a drop on two (three counting Moto-san?) Jounin. But Genma was a better sensor than Gai, and he'd admitted that I outdid him in that area, but that was most likely do to my 'previous life' cheat, not to mention the 'training since birth' mess. Not that he knew about either of those. If I felt anything at the borders of my radar, I'd let them know. Not that I was worried about it, I cut my teeth on tracking Anbu, bandits weren't shit.

Speaking of Anbu, I hadn't been aware Gai had been Anbu, though it was likely I'd known and forgotten about it in this life. His chakra was one that would occasionally shadow Naruto. Not often, just on some days when the signature I knew as Kakashi was gone. It tugged at the heartstrings to know that he'd asked his best friend to watch over his sensei's kid while he was away. Or Gai had done it of his own volition, both were sweet, in a ninja sort of way.

My thinking about Kakashi in relation to Gai probably brought the guy to his mind because I picked up on the conversation when he came up.

"-just like my eternal rival! So cool, so untouchable!"

Being compared to Kakashi for reading a book and being quiet wasn't what I had in mind, though that guy had been among my favorite characters, but the thrill of pride was drowned out when Genma cackled, throwing his head back for a second and even removing the senbon so he wouldn't choke.

"You mean this nerd? Ha, you haven't seen her spend four hours trying to convince a stray dog to come home with her."

I resisted the urge to catch up to where he was walking and hit him, it was enough of a privilege to be trusted to watch our backs that I didn't want to abandon my post. Instead I turned a page and kept listening.

"But I guess there is a bit of similarity. He was the one that recommended her for apprenticeship. Still don't know how that happened. Any idea, Asuka-chan?"

Asshole knew I was listening then. I shrugged with one shoulder, re-reading a particularly redundant paragraph.

"He overheard that my jounin sensei failed me for prioritizing a teammate. Not that he would have passed me anyway, I'm not a clan kid like his new apprentice."

Moto-san shook his head sadly,

"This system of promoting clan children is going to cause a rift between them and the civilian population."

I didn't say anything, it's not like I could tell him that it already had. Images flashed through my head of an empty compound, paw prints faded, nearly washed away. I shook it from my mind, going back to my book.

That night was uneventful. Moto-san was the best client a shinobi could ask for, no complaints at all, only smiles and understanding. It probably says something that our favorite civilians are actually retired ninja. I took a turn on watch, making note of the civilians camped near us. At the change of watch I alerted Genma, who only nodded and created a shadow clone. I was awake when it vanished, hearing the word 'merchants' whispered in my ear before I drifted off.

The next morning Gai was still awake from his watch and bouncing around with abominable good cheer. The rest of us had coffee to turn us into living human beings, and then we set out once more. It was much like the previous day up until something tickled at the edge of my senses. I didn't dare move my head away from my book, not that they were in any position to see us from that distance. They were moving faster than us, chakra enhancement, but academy level at most. Dropouts or genin test failures, either way that made them more dangerous than your average bandits. They were tracking us, and I had no doubt that some would try to pass and head us off, with others coming from the back towards me, the weakest link.

I huffed,

"We've got twelve coming from behind, 'bout three kilometers out still and tracking us. Some training given their developed chakra networks and the speed they're traveling."

The thing I love about working with real, experienced shinobi is that they didn't question how I knew this, only moving positions with Moto-san raising his eyebrows.

"A sensor? With a range like that no wonder you got an apprenticeship and kept it."

Yeah, let's break down everything I've ever accomplished and attribute it to something I can do naturally. Like that doesn't invalidate working my ass off at all. I shook off the annoyance, looking to Genma for orders, but he was already looking to Gai. Gai in turn looked to me,

"Twelve you say? Genin level?"

I paused before opening my book back up, though not looking at it yet.

"Definitely not."

He clapped his hands with a beaming grin,

"Yosh! Then we shall take care of these youthful bandits when they make their move and spare other travelers the trouble!"

Around what I was expecting coming from this guy. His eyebrows were atrocious but at least his teeth didn't light up like a flare in person. They were rather enviable though. I tore my eyes away from his teeth and looked back at my book, taking my cue from the others to act like business as usual. Genma dropped back next to me and I sped up to be closer to Moto-san, taking position near him. As the lowest ranking I was to keep close to the client while the other two took the front line positions. With the type of opponents they had incoming it was doubtful that I'd get to witness anything impressive, but it _would_ be amusing at the very least to see these guys so spectacularly outmatched.

I'd heard of bandits seeing that travelers had hired ninja escorts and giving up then and there because genin alone would trash civilian bandits, not to mention the jounin sensei that accompanied them. These guys weren't that smart. Not that anyone making a living like this could be too overly intelligent, it's not like the academy test was difficult, if they didn't pass it there wasn't much I could say about them that was positive. Even Naruto had done rather well on the written exam, failing only because of terrible chakra control caused by too large reserves, and one jackass named Mizuki who'd no doubt flubbered up his results in other areas.

Before they got close enough to see us I slipped one hand into my pocket, the other holding up the book. I was randomly turning pages at this point, no longer paying any attention to it whatsoever, but I doubt they could tell. I'd expected at least a little more organization than 'yell and rush them', but hey, everyone's wrong occasionally.

The first person to get Gai's foot to the face really set the tone for the rest of it, but I could see wheels turning in one particular bandits head. Two high rankers, and one slightly lower, no doubt they'd assume I was a chuunin because a genin didn't really fit this equation, and no doubt that meant that the person under protection was loaded. I felt the elemental leaning in his chakra as he got nearer and realized something, he'd been training it. He could probably use more than the standard academy bullshit. He made one step closer to us and I tossed out the seal tags my hand had been wrapped around the entire time. He'd taken three steps and the book was put down, a yellow barrier erected around us just as a water bullet grazed the side.

Neither of our techniques was subtle, and I could practically hear all eyes swiveling to focus on us. Moto-san whistled lowly,

"And fuinjutsu to boot. I don't see how you're still a genin."

I absentmindedly answered as I kept track of all the chakra signatures in the area,

"I wanted to graduate with my friends and age group. Early graduation outside of wartime is proven to lead to psychological problems."

There wasn't a single earth aligned chakra dot anywhere near us, so I felt comfortable with this particular version of the barrier, but I felt the need to reassure Moto-san.

"None of them are doton users, so at their level I doubt they could tunnel in here. I didn't want to waste the chakra on a sealed floor when the odds were so low."

He nodded, watching the fighting around him with the air of a general who had planned the whole thing himself.

"A very versatile seal. A conglomeration of Yoshitaka's and the Watashi standard?"

I didn't bother acting surprised, this guy had no doubt been a shinobi when Uzushiogakure itself fell, it wasn't surprising he'd encountered seals in his lifetime.

"Sort of. I stole the reductors off Watashi and then the corner pieces off Yoshitaka, but the rest is mine more or less, though I'll admit it leans toward the Uchiha style."

He gave me a look I easily interpreted to mean he wasn't sure which bit of that to address first. Finally he went with,

"Corner pieces?"

"I don't know the name of it, it's not like I've had actual instruction other than the occasional tips Genma-sensei gives me, but it's the parts that hold up the 'corners', the 'base' of the seal, if you will."

"...pillars. Those are called pillars. And I wasn't even aware the Uchiha had a sealing style."

This was around when Shinobi stopped sharing, no matter how much I liked the old guy those were secrets Sasuke had shared with me, and me alone.

"Not many are, but at the founding of the village they were in close contact with the Uzumaki, just as much as the Senju. All clans have _something_ going on with seals."

I carefully didn't mention the atrocities the Hyuuga got up to, every branch member that passed me sent a shiver down my spine, the seals on their foreheads not quite malicious but definitely 'bad'.

Salvation from this line of questioning came with another water technique, this time I had no idea what it was, only that it washed against the barrier with a loud crack, but didn't leave a scratch. I snorted,

"This was tested and developed with the help of at least three hundred shadow clones, going at it with ramen on the line, good fucking luck."

Moto-san hummed, absentmindedly admonishing, "Language," before going back to shinobi watching.

Genma and Gai were taking so long because they were incapacitating them rather than just straight up murdering the bitches, which would have taken about three seconds or something. Gai had seemed worried about myself and the client up until the barrier went up, when the first jutsu ricocheted off he put us out of his mind completely it seemed. With Genma confident in my abilities and Gai following suit that meant that the annoyance currently bouncing kunai off the barrier in front of me wasn't going away until the rest were dealt with, he gave up and ran off, or I did something about it. Seeing as he'd give up when the rest dwindled down and we didn't want him running free with jutsu capability of any sort I sighed, handing the book over and taking two steps forward, the barrier rippling as I stepped through.

It was a construct of my own chakra and thus I could walk through it whenever I pleased, but jutsu of any sort couldn't get in or out, otherwise it wouldn't make a good trap, as well as protection, and I pride myself on versatility. The moment I was out of it's reach the killing intent hit me like a car and I stopped, dark thoughts going through my head for all of a second before I laughed, probably not a good response, but the killer intent dropped off almost immediately and the bandit hissed,

"Take this seriously kid. A few pre-prepared seals from your sensei won't keep you safe anymore."

It was laughable, after a seconds thought, that this guy's killing intent could live up to the Kyuubi no kitsune, or even to Uchiha Itachi in full 'kill the clan' mode. Not that this guy was aware I'd faced down s-class level chakra manipulation. Anyone my age couldn't remember the Kyuubi and my involvement in the massacre was probably classified, the kind of classified that anyone who was anyone already knew and if they didn't know they didn't matter much anyway.

Either way, when he raised his hands to perform another jutsu I did my own, fire leaping from my mouth and grazing him as he dived out of the way. It didn't seem to matter that fire was a terrible element to use against someone naturally aligned with water, it was a grand fireball jutsu, only C-ranked, but I had used it with only half of a single seal. Tiger was easy enough to do halfway, with only two fingers raised, similar to the 'kai' used for my seals or any genjutsu release. The thing about being a sensor was that I could feel my own chakra moving, and the thing that had sickened me at first, had prevented me from using it at all, now allowed me to move chakra along the exact pathways needed and bypass hand seals with familiar enough jutsu.

The bandit raised his hands to perform another jutsu, down to at least half his chakra by this point, but before he could finish the first two hand seals of another water bullet I took a deep breath,

"Katon!"

The verbal naming of a jutsu, or even nature type, was was more help than you'd think. That little tidbit about names having power isn't exactly wrong. I didn't need a single seal with the name like that.

I didn't try to hit him with the jutsu, instead herding him towards the main fight, and blocking off escape. He turned to run anyway only to get Genma's fist to the back of the head. I checked the area before powering down the seal around Moto-san, small sparks flaring from where the seals themselves self destructed after use. Moto-san's eyes followed the flares briefly before looking around to where Gai was trussing up the bandits for someone to collect later, eyes crinkling as he smiled.

"Well done, well done. You two have come far. And the next generation is doing much better than what I had been informed."

Yeah, no doubt he'd been given readings on kids like Ino or Kiba, who lived in an era of peace, and trained like it, too. Moto-san tried to get me to talk to him about my seals the rest of the walk to his destination, and it was only when we'd left him with his granddaughter that I finally allowed myself to relax and stretch, groaning as we walked through the town.

"Finally, that felt like an interrogation."

Genma shrugged,

"It kind of was. Moto-san used to work in T&I. No doubt that seal of yours would be useful to them. I've been waiting for you to finally pronounce it finished before dragging you to show and tell with Ibiki."

From anyone else that would sound like a threat. But I'd known Genma long enough to tell that this was him being a pround mamma and wanting to show off in front of an old classmate. I snorted, shaking my head,

"You should know that I'll never be satisfied with a seal, I'm _always_ going to be tweaking it. If you want something impressive to rub in that guy's face you should have asked. I'm sure I can whip something up."

I had a particularly fascinating idea with seal chains within a barrier, taking cues from Uzumaki chakra chains, but since those were a kekkei genkai these were more really, really fancy chakra strings reinforced with nature chakra. My current favorite pet project was to have chakra strings infused with water nature and anchored to the ground and the opponent, and then given a good dose of the only lightning jutsu I was proficient at. It was actually meant for medical purposes, like defibrillator no jutsu or some shit, but it was all I could get my hands on at this rank without asking Genma, and he had enough on his plate. So it wasn't a technique that could kill, only cause pain or _maybe_ knock someone the hell out if I pushed enough raw chakra into it, but that would work fine for Ibiki's purposes.

Genma grinned, his hand on my shoulder shaking me out of my thoughts,

"See, this is why you're my favorite student!"

I sighed, not bothering to shake the hand off.

"I'm your only student."

We didn't bother to eat before leaving town, which was good because it was a nice place and wherever the jounin picked I was certain I wouldn't have enough money to so much as get a cup of tea. Instead we took to the trees the moment we were out of sight of the buildings, rocketing back towards the village. What took two days traveling slowly for Moto-san only took us four hours. I was miserable when we got there because no matter the pace Genma set I was going to follow it or so help me god. We exited the trees and slowed to a walk approaching the gates, only emergencies allowed for rapid approach after a certain distance after all, and a large hand landed on my head, nearly sending me to the ground. I looked up to see a beaming smile, one hand held aloft,

"What a display of youth! I would be honored if you would visit my own genin students and show them such dedication to training and improvement that you do, I'm certain inspiration can be shared to both parties!"

I glanced at Genma and he snickered,

"Translation, he wants you to spar his kids and see how they match up."

Oh. Well, it would be nice to know where I stand in comparison.

I turned back to the green clad jounin, smiling and nodding slightly.

"It would be an honor to meet your genin students Gai-sensei."

There were 'manly tears' at this point and I couldn't help but smile at the guy. Living with the constant war that is Uchiha vs Uzumaki had probably given me a high tolerance for ridiculous shit, but I found myself liking this guy. Besides, when it came to shinobi quirky and crazy meant strong as fuck. On our way to the Hokage tower we arranged a day for us to meet, Genma giving me the day off to train with Gai's team. Normally I would be stressed with wasting a 'free day' on training rather than missions to get some funds, but with C-rank pay I could afford to miss one day of D-ranks, maybe even another half day as well. Not that I would, it was always better to have plenty in reserve in case of injury or other unforeseen circumstances.

We did our verbal reports, the written ones due by the end of the week, and went our separate ways. Genma gave me a brief speech over what I did wrong, namely facing a water natured guy with fire jutsu, and I managed to squeeze a promise for some lightning jutsu out of him. I was grinning as I walked home, not bothering to dodge the orange missile that hit me before I could make it halfway there. I didn't bother prying Naruto off me as he chattered about boring D-ranks and demanding the details from my own mission.

When he finally let go I noticed that the rest of his team was present, including one Hatake Kakashi, masked nose stuck in an inappropriate book. Sakura and Sasuke looked equally eager for answers so I cast my eyes around for the nearest restaurant,

"Let's get something to eat, we didn't stop on the way back or after using a shit ton of chakra."

Of course four grand fireballs in a row would be a shit ton of chakra to me, especially on top of that barrier, and with the barrier taking several hits. Naruto could shoot that jutsu out of each of his ears and balance a rasengan on his nose from here to Suna and still be in better shape than me. Freakin' Uzumaki.

When Kakashi made to leave I caught Sasuke's eye, knowing Naruto wouldn't get subtle hints, and managed to convey what I wanted. I don't know what changed in their lives that Sakura was a normal human being around him, but with one glance she was his partner in crime, grabbing an arm each and dragging their sensei in with us. Naruto was slightly put out we weren't getting ramen, but settled for something else so long as he was getting the information he wanted.

I didn't want them to have too inflated an impression of C-ranks, instead giving them a slightly more friend appropriate run down of the facts. Naruto was put out that it was some old man I'd watched after, though he was proud that his help testing my barrier had played a good part in the mission. Sakura was all over how fine chakra control could lead to not needing seals and I easily offered an evening in the future to helping her out. It would prove a good time to point her at medic ninjutsu and a few things I knew would be an advantage in the near future.

Kakashi was mostly silent through it all, though he did slightly lower his book to ask questions about the seals, which I gladly complied with. I didn't give him everything, less than what I'd share with Genma, but more than what I told Moto-san for sure. It was an interesting conversation I didn't get to finish because Naruto and Sasuke got into some argument or another and we had to leave. Team Seven left to pick up another D-rank, which they complained about, and I went home to write up the report for the mission. Or I meant to, I ended up taking a nap instead. I wasn't bothered, after C-ranks you weren't allowed to take missions for at least a certain portion of the time you were on the mission itself, more if you were injured. I couldn't take a D-rank for another two days according to the missions desk, the rest of today not counting because Iruka-sensei was the one who accepted our verbal report and would know if I tried to show up again.

I rolled Genma's thoughts over in my head as I lay curled up on the couch, nap fading from memory as the thought of bills invaded. Maybe doing some seal work with R&D or even T&I _was_ a good idea. It would certainly bring in more money than D-ranks could in the limited amount of time I had to do them. It was definitely something to keep in mind if our landlord was going to continue being an ass to us because of our association with Naruto. Not that they noticed, Naruto still got a stipend from the Hokage that was likely his parents money, and then Sasuke had an entire fucking clans savings behind him. No, it was only me who was going to have to get creative, and Genma may accidentally hand me the connections to do it.

ALL STORIES ON HIATUS UNTIL NOVEMBER 2017! I'm sorry, I really am, but it's unavoidable. All stories will get a chapter at the end of November.

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


	13. Chapter 13

I had two seals submitted to R&D through Genma, and both were still being picked apart a week later rather than being lambasted in one day and returned with scathing comments. This was the ninja equivalent of getting my YA novel published by the same publisher as Harry Potter or something. It had a very 'senpai has noticed me' vibe to it that was slightly exciting and a bit sickening in a 'holy shit I better not fuck up' sort of way. But that wasn't the solution to my money problems, rather, Gai-sensei was.

Apparently his team liked to run C-ranks, but Neji sometimes trained with the Hyuuga and Tenten had other obligations as well. I hadn't even had time to go to a single training session with them before he approached Genma about stealing me to replace one of his genin for missions. It wasn't usually done on genin teams before someone was promoted to Chuunin, but Gai was odd so he got away with it. I figured it was because Lee was in the same boat as me money wise but that he would rather go without money for meals than miss training time to do D-ranks. It was the sort of underhanded ninja thing I should have expected from Gai, to go so far as to shift his team around temporarily so that his student would run missions and earn money.

Meeting Neji wasn't what I had expected it to be. Seeing as Gai dropped in at the usual 'Anbu window' to get me, I didn't even see him at first. Gai scared the shit out of the three other genin in my living room, Sakura looking up sharply from her book to blink at him owlishly before dismissing him in favor of whatever she was reading. Naruto hid behind Sasuke, who was doing his best to look unaffected as Gai bellowed that my sensei had graciously allowed him to steal me for missions since his 'youthful Tenten' was out sick.

I could feel the signatures of the two genin waiting on ground level, one excited and the other slightly irritated. I didn't want to aggravate the Hyuuga, so I grabbed my mission gear and waved to the genin,

"There's food in the fridge, you know the rules."

They parroted back automatically,

"Dishes in the sink or god help us."

I nodded before leaping out the window after Gai, landing lightly next to him and smiling as he introduced me, waving when he was done.

"Pleasure meeting you."

I didn't realize until we were out of the city gates, but I'd been chosen for a reason, and not just that Gai knew Genma. This was a higher level C-rank, had it been only chuunin they'd likely class it as a B-rank, but with Gai himself there it bumped down the ranking. We were to run a scroll to an outpost at the border, and speed was sort of important. We took to the tree's almost immediately, and through eavesdropping I learned Lee had been instructed to leave a good bit of his weights at home for this. Damn. That expert knowledge of _where_ my chakra was going and _when_ helped in keeping up, but it was a near constant drain on my reserves, and I resolved to up my speed training as much as possible. As much as I had weights applied through seals I still needed to actively work on it, and I'd forgotten that.

Nothing of interest happened on that mission, or the next one where it was Neji who I was replacing. He wasn't rude to me, and he didn't mention fate once, but he held himself apart in a way that said he didn't really think I'd make it far enough for it to be worth getting to know me. Lee was a different story, and if I ignored every application of the word 'youth' and every single metaphor he used then he became good company. Tenten I met on a later mission and was interesting to talk to, not only because she was a serious kunoichi but because weapons were the one thing I didn't have an advantage in, coupled with taijutsu, so I was more inclined to be frustrated by it. She was the only one I confided a certain developing technique in, and she was a major help with it in every single way.

She was also the reason I first took a life. A chuunin by the name of Sonada Nonami needed an escort from an outpost, and we were redirected from running a scroll to running her home. Sonada was a career Chuunin, twenty-eight years old, of average height, with blue eyes and bright purple hair that flared out in two spikes that curled outward on either side of her head. She had a scar running across her right cheekbone, though it didn't stop her smile from still looking friendly.

It began routinely enough, with little blips of life appearing at the edge of my awareness, though Gai-sensei had instructed me to keep it tighter around us than usual to avoid false alarms with civilian travelers, or even border patrol. Keeping it reigned in meant that when they got close I knew so much more about them. I was at the rear, with Tenten beside me, Lee on one side of Sonada-san and Gai on the other. I didn't have to raise my voice to make myself heard.

"Active chakra systems approaching."

He didn't even glance back at me,

"Exact numbers?"

I sighed,

"Seventeen total, four at least chuunin level, the rest _maybe_ made it through two years of academy training."

"Hmm, chances of avoiding confrontation?"

I hesitated, running trajectory calculations across our current speed, comparing it to theirs, and then making a mental note to apologize to Iruka-sensei for thinking that none of this would ever be useful in the real world.

"Almost non-existent. They're ahead of us, either coming from Konoha or they had an early start and went around, because there's no way they have the reserves to have outpaced us."

He took the unasked for observation in stride, no doubt accustomed to it coming from my sensei.

"ETA?"

"...four minutes at most."

Sonada-san scoffed,

"There's no way they're outpacing us if it will take them four minutes to get here at the edge of what your sensei ordered to be a 'reduced range', whatever the hell _that_ is."

Lee responded for me, shooting Sonada a beaming smile and a thumbs up,

"Asuka-chan is the best sensor I've had the pleasure of working with, even Hyuuga have remarked upon her accuracy!"

That was a slight exaggeration, seeing as Neji had once stated that I 'wasn't terrible'. But if he was willing to stretch the truth for me then I wasn't going to complain. We kicked up the pace after that and I gave updates, with us trying halfheartedly to weave around them, only for me to call out a warning,

"Fifteen seconds, on our one and eleven."

We stopped dead, ready to meet them head on, Sonada pushed to the back between Tenten and myself. Tenten already had several kunai drawn and slotted between her fingers, and I subtly pulsed chakra into the seals inked into the bandages on my body to release the training weight I'd still been able to keep on and manage to keep pace with the others. There was a war cry to start it out and I'm sure we collectively winced. No finesse. The first two in line were wielding rusted katana, and were obviously canon fodder for the next person to emerge, because they almost immediately threw out a doton jutsu.

Lee slapped a hunk of earth out of the air and Gai bellowed,

"Barrier three around the client, Asuka-chan!"

I threw out the tags immediately, barrier three being the one with a floor and a ceiling which kept people both in and out unless they were me. He apparently didn't trust Sonada-san not to try to jump into the fight, or maybe bargain the scroll for our lives, who knew. Either way there was no need to stick so close to the barrier, I'd know when it became strained, and until then our only problem was putting these weirdo's out of commission. I told Tenten such.

"My best friends field tested this particular barrier on Sharingan no Kakashi during training. It will hold against these guys no problem."

I ignored her surprised look, it wasn't uncommon for ninja to just not share techniques, hell, she probably thought that I was just a sensor, that's usually specialization enough for those with the right talent. The Q&A session would have to wait, however because we had other shit to worry about. Tenten was clubbing people over the head left and right, several of them went down with blades sticking out of non-lethal areas. Those that looked like they were going to get up I slapped knockout tags onto.

We worked beautifully like that for a while, but there were so many of them, properly trained or not. Eventually a chuunin slipped past Gai-sensei purely by virtue of his hitai-ate being in a more shadowed place on his body and easily ignored. I saw it though, rogue from Mist. The Hidden Mist spits out terrifying bastards in my opinion, and this guy opened with a water dragon, liquid pulled from god-knows-where. It wasn't a full sized one, but it was enough, slamming into the barrier, grazing Tenten on it's way past. She hit the ground hard and didn't move. I felt the sudden drop in energy from the barrier and saw Sonada with her back pressed against the wall, eyes wide.

I leapt forwards, kunai held in a backwards grip. The chuunin met my strike of course, jarring my arm and shoulder in the process. I leapt back slightly to gain distance but his attention was on me now, probably recognizing me as the castor of the seal. If I died, so would the barrier. He leapt for me and I used the replacement jutsu, seallessly, with one of his friends behind him. He wasn't expecting it of course, the lack of seals compounded with nothing that I _should_ have been able to use so close to him. But the knockout tag was infused with my chakra, a definite link, and the guy I switched with was out cold, no resistance.

It was almost easy to jam my kunai at the base of his skull. He dropped immediately, and I just breathed for a few seconds, closing my eyes briefly and swallowing to prevent myself from vomiting. I only moved when I felt Tenten step towards me, perfectly fine, if a bit bruised. I cleared my throat, doing my best to shake it off, and opened my eyes to take in who was next.

The fight didn't end just because something traumatic had happened, but it made my tolerance for this decrease substantially, so when the bandits around us increased in number, annoyed by their fallen friend, I gave up on being gentle, sensing Gai had donen the same when a rogue Iwa Chuunin showed up. I'd been avoiding using jutsu because neither Lee or Tenten bothered with it, and even Neji stuck to the Gentle Fist, not to mention it was much harder to be nonlethal with them. But it was stupid to have an ace and refuse to use it. Especially since there were real ninja among these idiots. Tenten was probably more surprised than the enemies surrounding us when I took in a breath and released it as fire. Things only escalated from there.

I went from killing one person to killing six. Burning alive is a horrible way to go, I should know, it was one of the ways Itachi killed me in Tsukuyomi. I even used a few tricks I'd learned from that experience. It wasn't a good mission, with the parameters leaked and someone from the border snitching on who even had the scroll, it seemed. The first hit was directed straight at Sonada, after all, sparking the need for the barrier. I collapsed bonelessly onto the ground with my back against a tree, just watching the sunlight filter through the leaves of the Hashirama trees around us while Gai gathered the bodies that I hadn't already torched, separating them from those still living who would be picked up later and taken to T&I. It was slightly, darkly, amusing that they might even be used to test my very own interrogation seals.

There was a tapping noise and I glanced over and finally remembered Sonada.

"Ah, sorry Sonada-san." I wearily brought my fingers up, "Kai."

The seal shattered outwards, a stronger one than I'd used before in an actual mission, and the spark from the seal paper destructing was unnoticeable unless you knew to look for it. The biggest thing was the drain on my chakra suddenly ceasing. I still needed to refine the flow of this damn thing so that it would take an initial surge to activate and then...I wasn't sure. Maybe either take it from the person inside if it was a prison seal, or nature chakra if it was to protect. I wasn't too sure about fucking with nature chakra, though. That shit was dangerous.

I was snapped out of my theorizing when Sonada laughed,

"Nonami-chan will be fine for you, kid. You're one scary bitch when you really put effort into it."

I snorted,

"Thanks...I think."

She cast one look back at the scorched ground where the barrier used to be and then grinned at me.

"Definitely a compliment, kid."

Tenten was the only one injured, though it was quickly bandaged and forgotten. We took off for Konoha at a faster pace than before, with Gai having me widen my perception. We encountered only three more people, stragglers from the main force, and they were easily dealt with by Lee alone in the blink of an eye. We were met at the gate by Ibiki himself, who took the scroll from Nonami and vanished with it almost immediately. That wasn't proper procedure, but we weren't exactly about to tell _that_ particular jounin 'no'. Our report was brief, and we were quickly released. I could feel Gai's eyes on my back as I left the mission room, just knowing some awkward conversation was coming my way about the lives I'd taken. Wanting nothing more than to avoid that I rushed to the first available window and opened it, eyeing the only chuunin in the hallway desperately,

"If Might Gai asks I took the left hallway, got it?"

He nodded with understanding, Gai was Gai, after all.

With one leap I was on the street, and it took me three seconds for the tower to be out of sight. From there I walked. Not home, for one that's where Gai would look first, if he bothered to. But also because there was no one there. I was oddly grateful this was the weekend Kakashi chose to take his Genin out on a real survival mission. Not quite a C-rank, but more training outside of the walls. I didn't want to be alone, but I also didn't want to relate anything at all about this mission to those three. Four, really. They roped Kakashi into coming over surprisingly often.

 _He'd looked distinctly uncomfortable, well ninja uncomfortable, the first time I'd walked in to find him sitting at my kitchen table. It wasn't the first time it had happened, I'd felt his lingering chakra there before, but this was the first time I'd returned from training or a mission to find them there still. The others were loudly arguing from the living room over a cookbook, so I felt safe grinning and asking, "Back again? Miss my cooking after all this time?"_

 _He narrowed his eye,_

" _So you_ _ **do**_ _remember me."_

" _Course I do. You were gone, after. Thought you might have been one of them."_

 _I had actually entertained the idea he was some Anbu Uchiha for a while, before his identity was confirmed right after graduation, the chakra the Sharingan radiated made them similar after all. I shrugged it off, opening a cabinet and taking stock of what I had._

" _Well, long time in coming, but it's nice to see you're still alive. I'll put away my gear and take over this enterprise before they poison us. Accidentally of course."_

It had been a fun evening, Kakashi seemingly relaxing more after that. I had many theories about why, one of which being that they'd barged into my apartment when I was the only one absent rather than use one of theirs. It wasn't how we worked. We lived in one another's pockets, and when Naruto went on that training trip Sasuke and I would likely be a little bit lost.

I wandered the village for a while, covered in a light henge of course. I felt a few shinobi break the genjutsu and gave them a sour look for it. They only shrugged. It made sense of course, to make sure I wasn't an enemy sneaking in or some shit, but they left it alone once they realized it was just to cover up blood and gore. It was a common trick for those returning from a mission who didn't want to freak out the civilians.

When I figured it had been long enough I slipped into my apartment window, the one I had dubbed 'the Anbu window'. First order of business was to lay out my gear and replace everything that needed it. It took me almost an hour to re-ink all of the seals I'd used on this damn mission, and I started tea before finally, finally, stepping into the shower. The shower is normally where people contemplate life and all of their choices and mistakes but I refused. I'd started tea just to keep me from losing myself in thought here. The responsibility to keep the complex from burning down was enough to keep me from slipping into morose thoughts.

That doesn't mean I didn't swear a bit when I felt a familiar signature enter the apartment through the Anbu window. It wasn't Gai, but it might just be worse. I put on a matching plaid pajama set before pulling my wet hair into a bun and stepping into the living room where Genma was waiting, seated in front of the coffee table on the floor. I ignored him, crossing to the kitchen where I gathered the tea and two cups. I settled on the floor across from him and concentrated on my tea, dragging out pouring it as long as possible, wishing I could avoid this conversation completely.

It wasn't to be. Genma finally took the teapot from me, clearing his throat.

"Gai says you ran into some trouble on this mission."

I shrugged with one shoulder, staring into my tea and trying to ignore how the feeling of the kunai sliding in under that guys skull had felt. Genma sighed,

"It happens to all of us eventually kid. Gai says your teammate was down, and the client was at risk. We all know that barrier of yours can't take too many water dragons directly, Hatake certainly proved that for us."

I snorted, still not quite over the surprise that Kakashi already knew that jutsu and had not actually copied it mid-battle off Zabuza. Gotta admit, it must have scared the shit out of the nuke-nin to think that's what he was doing.

"What I'm trying to say is you didn't do anything wrong, so you can stop looking like a puppy who's expecting to get kicked any second now."

I scowled, finally looking up at him. The senbon was absent from his mouth and I caught a glint of light from where he was rolling it around between his fingers.

"I did go a little crazy with the fireballs."

He shrugged,

"I'll get you some new jutsu. Not your fault that's the only good one you know."

"...I've also got three other fire jutsu."

"Well they would have still burned shit, now wouldn't they?"

I beamed at him, and his unusual usage of expletives around me,

"Now you're talkin my language."

He huffed, replacing his senbon in his mouth and crossing his arms.

"Whatever kid, now that mess is out of the way, I've got takeout."

I don't know where he pulled it from, but he did indeed have takeout. The place wasn't cheap and I'd been there exactly one other time, when Genma had paid for it. The rest of the night was spent talking about books, the fiction kind. There was no mention of seals, or jutsu, or death. Just food and lighthearted conversation. It was exactly what I needed just then, and I couldn't help but adore my sensei just a little bit for knowing it.

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


	14. Chapter 14

The first time I ran a mission without Genma, or someone he'd expressly given permission to take me on one, was because I'd been requested by a jounin. It was the only way such a thing was possible, and I found it extremely uncomfortable to be leaving without his say-so. But he was on a mission of his own and wouldn't be back until after this mission was over, and it was a _B-rank_. The water bill was due, and I really needed the money. Not to mention paying for food, and seal paper. God do I run through seal paper.

So I accepted. It turns out the jounin in question was a recently promoted Sonada Nonami. I raised an eyebrow in silence when I saw her standing at the gate with one other person and she just laughed.

"I know, I know. Took me a while to finally go for the exam, but here we are. Glad you could make it, figured that sensei of yours might object."

I shifted my weight slightly, enough to let her know I was uncomfortable with that particular subject without having to voice it.

"He's...on a mission."

"Ah, your decision then, interesting. Anyway, this is Mitarashi Anko. I hope you get along."

I blinked up at the other purple haired woman present before frowning. It was the wrong move, with how Anko tensed, likely expecting some reference to Orochimaru, no doubt. Instead I made a desolate noise, faking worry,

"Ahhh, how come everyone but me has awesome purple hair, I mean _honestly_."

Anko grinned, snickering,

"I'm sure we can do something about that."

Nonami slapped the both of us across the back of the head simultaneously,

"Focus you two, we've got shit to retrieve. Anko here is a front-liner, I'm a weapons specialist, and Asuka-chan is a damn fine sensor with some interesting fuinjutsu up her sleeve. Now that we're acquainted let's go. I'll give you full parameters when we're five minutes out."

I had to undo my weight seals almost automatically to keep up with the two women, and was sweating bullets by the time we stopped to rest. The mission was simple enough. A storm had intercepted a message hawk and we needed to pick it up before anyone else did. Nonami's actual part in this mission was her familiarity with the hawks. It was her first lead as jounin, and she was the only one of us who would know if the hawk or message had been tampered with already.

While we were resting she brought out a map and poked a finger at a particular space several miles west of where we were.

"This area is where the storm hit." Her finger drew a straight line from Konoha to the border, crossing over the point she'd already indicated. "This is the path the bird was taking. We'll have to start from here, just in case the wind got to it before it even reached the main event. Asuka here will be keeping a feel out for it."

Anko huffed,

"No offense to the midget, but wouldn't an Inuzuka be better for this?"

Nonami shook her head,

"The storm would have gotten rid of the scent, and the chakra tags on their legs are meant for authentication, they're the wrong kind to be tracked accurately with kikachu or a Byakugan. Sharingan would have been next to useless so no sense rousing Hatake out of bed. No, I've seen this girl tell a fox apart from a turtle at a distance of two miles."

I nodded,

"I'm familiar with the feel of the messenger hawks chakra tags as well, so that should expedite things."

Anko's face clearly said she'd believe it when she saw it.

It took us three hours to find the bird and secure it's message, we were back in the village before the sun went down. The opposition we were expecting never arrived, and I exited the tower with the two purple haired women slightly behind me.

"That was the easiest money I've made in my life, pleasure working with you."

I cheerfully started to walk home only to be caught by the shoulder by Anko, grinning broadly.

"Where do you think you're going? We still have some purple to apply!"

The next day the purple hair, the exact same shade as Mitarashi's, attracted a few funny looks but it wasn't uncommon for shinobi to color their hair, it tended to confuse the shit out of foreign analysts and make them believe there were several individuals with the same capabilities. If there's one thing ninja's love it's a mindfuck. Genma still wasn't back yet, so I entered the mission room with hopes of securing at least a D-rank mission, even though the rest period after a B or A-rank was for at least the duration of the mission itself. If I found a Chuunin who hadn't seen me yesterday it might work, it was common practice after all. I was searching through the D-rank tags on the wall for something I could stomach doing on my own when I felt a familiar chakra presence behind me and stepped neatly out of the way of the hand coming down to steal my beanie.

"Nice to see you too, Mitarashi-san."

"Now don't be like that, squirt. We're sisters in purple now, calling me by my name won't hurt you."

I smiled, not taking my eyes off the tags, finally pulling one off the rack for a grocery shopping job.

"In that case it's nice to see you, Anko-san. If you'll excuse me I have-"

"A _d-rank_? Why the fuck would you be running D-ranks?"

While I appreciated the fact that she didn't curb her language and was therefore less likely to admonish me for mine I still didn't appreciate her attempting to steal my hat. I easily sidestepped her next swipe for my beanie.

"Because I need to pay rent?"

She finally ceased her swiping, moving around to stand in front of me with her hands on her hips and a frown on her face.

"So you run _d-ranks_? That's not going to get you anywhere fast."

"...Anko-san, you are aware that I'm a genin, right?"

"...Ahhaha….no. Really?"

"Yes, really. I graduated with the last class, actually."

Her startled expression really gave me the warm and fuzzies, though they disappeared when she stepped in my way once again.

"Wait wait wait wait, I can't let anyone I've been seen running a mission with be caught doing _d-ranks_. Come on, I'm sure there's something here for us."

She snatched a random B-rank off the wall pushed me ahead of her to a mission desk. I pushed down the feeling of foreboding, I mean, it would certainly straighten out my financial situation for the next few weeks at least. I could get _so much_ seal work done if I didn't have to run d-ranks for a few days...surely just one more mission with Anko couldn't hurt?

Apparently it can hurt a lot. Not so much physically, though being tossed against a tree by a pissed off Kumo-nin is painful, but rather it snowballed from there. I underestimated how many friendly people Anko had in her life, because I assumed Nonami would be the norm. I'd never seen Sonada Nonami in the show, not even a mention so far as I could remember, and yet she and Anko got along decently. But Nonami was the exception that proved the rule, going so far as to have a very cryptic conversation with me that I'm pretty sure was her feeling out if I was going to up and be a bitch, following the lead of others. Finally I got sick of it, on the third day of cryptic questions I pulled Nonami into a deserted hallway of the tower, fixing her with a blank stare.

"Nonami-san, are you aware that one of my two best friends goes by the name of Uzumaki Naruto?" I waited for realization to follow the name before I rolled my eyes. "I practically live with him. I do the grocery shopping because civilians are such butthurt bitches about him. I'm the last person to be affected by the opinions of others."

That put a stop to the weirdness, but it did mean I spent a good bit more time around both women. Jounin and Anbu are the only ones outside of wartime who might be called on to do missions back to back, but I did it the first time on accident, forgetting the rule completely because I was simply going wherever Anko lead me. The very last time happened when leaving the tower, Anko having already run off to Ibiki with an interesting bit of information we'd gathered. It wasn't my fault Moto-san was there, or that he recognized me.

"Asuka-chan!"

I froze, clutching my half finished report in one hand and raised an eyebrow at the old man.

"Moto-san. I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon."

He shrugged, beaming at me,

"Ah, there was an unexpected issue involving one of my investments in Konoha. It would seem that none of my prefered escorts are available, save yourself of course."

I could tell the chuunin in front of him was flagging, having been browbeaten for information about Gai, Ebisu, and Genma for what was probably hours. Moto had worked with T&I in his day, after all. The fucking traitor immediately stamped the mission and tossed the scroll my way.

"The missions yours! Take it...Asuka, was it? Surname?"

"None."

I flipped open the scroll, Moto was going to the exact same destination as before. I sighed, rolling the scroll back up and using the nearest wall as a flat surface to scribble out the rest of the report. I'd never been more grateful for all the practice I'd done to be able to write seals during a fight. The report wasn't pretty or calligraphy like the seals would have been, but there was a shit ton more written there. Moto was still talking to someone on the other end of the room so I took the time to shove the horrible excuse of a report at the chuunin who had saddled me with the old man.

"Here, you can have the honor of filing that."

He didn't even have the decency to look guilty.

"That old man is a terror."

"I know, he's ex-T&I, you got manipulated into sending a rookie Genin alone on a C-rank escort mission. Have fun with _that_ paperwork."

The blood fled from his face and he automatically began flailing for the forms he needed. I had no sympathy for him. It was out of my hands when he stamped it, it was a mission assigned to me directly, failure to complete it could get me court-martialed. Warning him meant he could bury it in bureaucracy and save his own ass, but I didn't want attention called to it either, it's not like I wanted someone to put a stop to my only decent source of income. All the jounin I'd run missions with, especially Anko, were well aware my sensei didn't have a clue what was going on, and none of them wanted to alert mama bear. They carefully avoided me when I was training with him, though Anko had a habit of happening to be nearby when I was on the way home, and I usually ended up at a dango establishment. Dango was the food of god, and no one could convince either of us otherwise.

Moto-san finally wrapped up whatever the hell he was doing, and I couldn't help but wish that Anko had stayed around. It wouldn't have been hard to convince her to go with me on this one, she really was sort of a friend by this point. I wasn't worried about Moto-san getting hurt, if worst came to worst he could rediscover his old shinobi talents and nope his ass out of whatever situation got me killed. Because the only way he'd have to defend himself is if I ended up dead.

The possibility of me dying on a mission had never really occurred to me, not when there were capable jounin or chuunin around. I hadn't realized how much their very presence had been a security blanket until that point. I kept a feel out, the invisible net as wide as possible, changing our route around to avoid any possible brush with human life. By the time we stopped for the night I was certain there was no one anywhere near us. I still didn't sleep that night. It wasn't possible, with no one else there to take a turn at watch.

I crunched caffeine and soldier pills, circulating chakra almost constantly to keep my muscles loose despite sitting perfectly still in my tree perch. Every now and then I would cycle through the seals for a jutsu, I wouldn't release it, but it was good practice. When Moto woke up I exited the tree, and we picked up polite conversation once again. He was excited to hear that some of my seals had found their way to T&I, and before we parted ways he told me he expected great things from me. No pressure or anything.

Regardless of giving them seals I didn't want anything to do with Torture and Interrogation. The only reason I'd given more seals to them than to Research and Development was because Genma wanted to rub it in Ibiki's face. Maybe I should have given them to Genma to do as he pleased. Because putting myself in front of T&I both with the seals and through Anko suddenly made me incredibly wary when Moto-san was the one expressing interest. I couldn't shake the feeling, so I ran full tilt back to Konoha, only thirty minutes away from the village I was stopped by a presence at the edge of my awareness.

I hesitated for half a second, looking in the direction of the village before a flare of unfamiliar chakra went off, entirely too near the vaguely familiar one. I groaned, changing my direction slightly and angling towards the fight. Just out of sight I paused, removing the beanie and shoving it into my equipment pouch. I pulled my hair up out of the way into a ponytail and secured the Konoha headband around my forehead, easily in view. I didn't want the friendly shinobi down there to get an unexpected surprise and for _both_ parties to mistake me for enemy reinforcements, and attack.

I drew my chakra down close to my core, in the same manner that scared the shit out of Genma every time I utilized it in training, and approached as silently as possible. Given that I was being trained by someone very much still in Anbu the two preoccupied nin didn't notice my approach. It was a Hyuuga, main branch judging by the blank forehead, though their byakugan wasn't activated. A Hyuuga out of the village alone, they had to be a jounin. It explained why they felt vaguely familiar, the dormant Byakugan would be something I'd felt coming from Neji. I couldn't put the situation together without more information, but what I could see wasn't good. The shinobi facing off against the Hyuuga wasn't wearing a headband, in fact they wore a black mask with white lines radiating outwards from the eyes.

Let's be honest though, they were probably from Kumo. There was some sort of black sludge hanging off both of the Hyuuga's arms, and even from this distance I could tell it was sucking his chakra, likely the reason the Byakugan wasn't activated, compounded with the fact he couldn't use gentle fist with his hands out of commission like that. I needed a plan, and I needed one now. I wouldn't be able to stay out of sight for long, not with Kumo Anbu in the mix. But I shouldn't need that long. I'd tested my new technique already against Naruto and his one man army, with Genma thrown into the mix for good measure...but now wasn't the best time. The element of surprise was completely on my side here, at the very least we should be able to cut and run, no need for the dramatics of what I'd originally turned my mind to.

So I launched myself out of the tree and threw a seal directly at the Anbu, deep black, unnatural smoke rising and obstructing his view, dulling his senses while it was at it. The Hyuuga automatically faced me and I flared my chakra in the konoha standard code that basically meant 'I'm here to help', and the tension eased very slightly in his shoulders. I jerked a thumb back to Konoha, even as I landed on the ground near him, hands flowing immediately into the standard code for 'retreat'.

It didn't take more than two seconds for the exchange and he was off, not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I hadn't slept in two days, maybe three? I'd chomped enough chakra pills that I was at half capacity at this point, and I winced as I threw out a shadow clone, breath coming in gasps at it solidified. I really shouldn't be using the technique, but it was the only thing I could think of, the clone henging into the Hyuuga, complete with the goop on it's arms, my clones chakra control techniques being similar enough to mine that the goo gave off the same feel, or close enough. I let my hold on the seal slip and the smoke cleared out, the anbu turning to myself and my clone as we took off into the trees.

Konoha nin have the advantage in any forest area, but in the Hashirama trees we're damn uncatchable. I didn't have the chakra for a single jutsu, even my favored katon ones, but I did have seals that would barely take a spark to activate. I twisted out of sight, keeping the Hyuuga-clone close to me, and slightly ahead, and in the split second I was out of the Anbu's line of sight I tossed four Kunai, setting the charges.

When the Anbu got close they flared to life, not explosive tags, but a barrier seal. It was a wall, and I wasn't expecting the guy to _actually_ run into it, but that smack was unmistakable. Are barrier seals _really_ so uncommon it never even occurs to anyone to be wary of them? I found that hard to believe what with how useful they were. I expected the Anbu to go around the barrier quickly, not speed up as if to beat out an explosion and subsequently ram the wall with his face. Amusing as it was if he hadn't been worn down from the Hyuuga already I didn't think I would have made it even this far. I could only hope that the Hyuuga made it to the gates and sent someone to help me, or that this guy gave the fuck up the closer he got to the village.

My luck finally ran out, and the Anbu put on speed, springboarding off the side of a trunk and then a limb, twisting around so that he was in front of me, sliding a kunai through the Hyuuga's ribs. After a second of dramatic choking on blood the clone grinned, a weird as hell expression on a Hyuuga, and the clone popped. I wasted no time, feeling the surge of anger in the Anbu's chakra, tossing out more kunai. Some went for the Anbu, who deflected them easily, the rest skittered across the limbs. He took a step forward and deflected one aimed for his left eye and _finally_ enough seals lined up. I flared the barrier into place and ran before he could even comprehend what I'd done.

There was no way that barrier could hold Anbu for very long. It had taken a determined Kakashi barely a minute and twenty seconds to brute force his way to freedom, so I rounded this one's lifespan up to a minute and thirty five at most. I'd never run faster in my life, heart pounding, vision blurring at the edges from adrenaline, the fear finally catching up to me. I'd seen the Hyuuga's chin dipping down to his jounin vest, where the suicide pills were kept. No doubt main branch Hyuuga had a special kind that would make their eyes useless after death. His particular death wouldn't have affected the story in any way. Kumo wouldn't have gotten the eyes, no secrets would be lost. But keeping to 'the plan' was no way to live. This place was home, and this was my life, being a shinobi of Konoha was my life's purpose, and if I was going to do it then I was going to do it right. Even if I died here and now Naruto would save the world eventually. I wasn't actually necessary here. So every mark I could make of my own in history was a win.

I tried to convince myself of that as I used every trick Genma had ever taught me about avoiding pursuit, as well as the ones I'd learned in the field with Anko. I had no doubt that if I hadn't been running the level of missions I had been, and as many of them, that I would have been in no shape to even so much as scrape by like I was. As they say, practice makes perfect. I felt the seals shatter through the chakra connection I had with them and winced, a minute and forty-five seconds. Longer than I'd thought, but still not enough for comfort. It would take him a few more seconds, maybe minutes if I was lucky, to pick up my trail again, and who knew how fast he'd be after me once he did. There was no reason to chase me now that he knew the Hyuuga was gone, none other than to murder the shit out of me for being an annoyance.

I cast out my senses for Konoha shinobi anywhere at all, leaving or returning from a mission, even a patrol, and noted that the Anbu hadn't moved. He was likely looking for the seals for the barrier. After five full minutes he moved, and my knees went weak when it was in the complete opposite direction of me. I stopped for fifteen seconds to get my breathing under control and choke back tears. I couldn't tell if they were from relief at being alive, delayed from fear, or maybe even 'what the hell was I thinking' sort of tears.

I resumed running and didn't slow my pace, instead keeping the same one, for all I knew the Anbu was a really good sensor himself and had sent a clone back and was sneaking up on me with the best chakra suppression technique the world had ever seen. I arrived at the gate to the sight of a team amassing, no doubt to go after the Anbu running around near our village. I didn't bother to slow down as courtesy would usually dictate, instead leaping from the last branch and sliding a bit from my uncontrolled landing. I didn't realize how hard I was breathing until I was laying on the ground and staring up at Anko.

I grinned at her,

"Heeeey, guess who pissed off some foreign Anbu?"

A medic rushed forwards, bright green hair the second thing I noticed after the intense scowl.

"What the hell were you thinking, kid? How many chakra pills did you even take?!"

"...admittedly a lot."

He barked out his next question, "Exact number!"

It was more of an order and I responded on instinct,

"One three days ago, two more last night, and one about four hours ago."

I could practically see the steam coming out of his ears, but he was pushed aside to make room for Morino Ibiki himself.

"Where's the Anbu?"

I didn't bother sitting up, he'd have told me to if it bothered him I was lying down in the dirt. He'd even crouched down for me, how sweet.

"Third quadrant to the West, last I saw. Caught him in a barrier for nearly two minutes, and by that point he gave up following, seeing as he'd just realized the Hyuuga with me was a clone. It seemed he decided that he'd rather return to his village than risk taking time to murder the shit out of me for being a nuisance."

There was some movement and then a rush of air as some left to follow the guy and make sure he actually left Fire Country, that or to actually haul him back here. I was trying to catch my breath still when Anko fell to her knees beside me and pulled me up into a sitting position by my shoulders, letting me lean against her as the medic dragged a glowing hand across me. Ibiki decided to get a report right then and there.

"What were you doing outside of the village?"

"I was returning from a C-rank mission when I noticed a serious confrontation between a Konoha nin and a foreign chakra signature. Upon investigation the Konoha nin was leaning toward a last resort, so I created a distraction and became bait."

"What was the mission? Where's the rest of your team?"

"Escort mission. Chuunin Uyehara assigned it to me alone upon request from Moto-san."

I didn't even need to provide a full name for that old ass, understanding dawned on the interrogation specialist almost immediately. He opened his mouth to ask another question and surprisingly stopped when the medic held up a hand.

"I'm going to check her into the hospital. You can question her to your heart's content whenever she wakes up."

 **~TimeLordOfPie**


End file.
